The Rebuilding of a World
by AaronEvans
Summary: Sequel to An American Muggle at Hogwart's Court. Samuel Green must return to Hogwarts and help defend it against a different kind of threat.
1. The Aftermath of Voldemort

**Author's Note: **_This is the continuation of my story "An American Muggle at Hogwarts' Court". If you haven't read it I highly suggest you do so before reading this one. It will mostly be following the adventures of Elanus Green, Samuel Green, Maria Esteban and James Evans. Some attention will be paid to the Canon characters but I don't intend for it to be the bulk of the story. _

**Formatting Note: **_I'm trying a bit different formatting style here so if it changes in the middle of the story, just bare with me.___

**Disclaimer: **_I fail to see the reasoning behind this but all canon characters in this story belong to JK Rowling, all non-canon characters belong to me._

**The Aftermath of Voldemort**

   Voldemort had been defeated, there was no doubt. Hundreds of wizards from all over England, and even the rest of the world had come to see the Dark Lord hanged. His corpse was inspected several times over before the throngs of people brutally dismembered it and burned the pieces. Stripped of his power by the Opposite Gene Evans, Voldemort's soul simply passed on like any other, unable to return to the living. 

   A great upheaval in the wizard world followed in his wake. The Ministry of Magic was without a Minister, as the traitorous Cornelius Fudge had been imprisoned for his crimes, awaiting execution. Arthur Weasley was named Minister in his place. The people thought it time to have a strong leader with an interest in the muggles that saved them. Mercifully Arthur dismissed Fudge's execution, and imprisoned his predecessor in his own home. 

   The centers of influence had suddenly and drastically shifted as more then a dozen pure blood wizard families suddenly found themselves stripped of all property as their Death Eater patriarchs and matriarchs were imprisoned or executed for treason. Dozens of minor families who had once depended on their wealthier cousins were now without a meal ticket. Other, once repressed, pure blood families now found themselves at the top of the ladder so to speak. The Malfoy Estate managed to be the only exception as Draco had inherited and managed to seize his father's assets. How a sixteen year old managed such a feat is unknown, though his efforts in the fight against Voldemort seemed to have something to do with it.

   Politics in the Ministry had begun to change rapidly as well, under the direction of the new Minister. Weasley implemented laws that virtually ended the wrongful oppression of the goblins, centaurs and house elves.  Better fairness to muggles policies were brought forth, and dozens of other reforms were put on the table. Harsher punishments for those who abused and took advantage of muggles were also set in place. The muggle parents of wizard students were given more access to the wizard world as well. Arthur thought much could be learned from them if given the chance. Several muggle families even moved into wizard neighborhoods. 

   There were doubts among many though. Some didn't believe the events that took place at Hogwart's the year before had really happened. Many couldn't let go of their old fears, and still many others wished to take advantage. Rumors began to circulate, and those who managed to escape justice began to look for ways to reclaim their power.

   Much was covered up as well, to save the embarrassment of those who were imprisoned. The truth simply wasn't told to those who most needed to hear it. Millennia of hiding from the world made wizards very good at keeping secrets, especially those that should have been told.

  


Chapter 1: The Summer

   Hermione Granger sat at a small desk penning a note to her friend Harry. It had been an unusual summer in that Harry had actually been able to write back. Since she'd known him, his oppressive relatives had forbidden him to write to his friends. If not that, then circumstances beyond anyone's control had prevented letters from ever reaching him. At any rate, it had been nice. 

   She felt a pang of guilt as she signed her name to the end of the letter. This was only her third letter to Harry, when she knew full good and well more letters could have been sent. Her budding relationship with Ron Weasley had monopolized a large portion of her time, though and surely Harry realized that. She also felt guilty for neglecting her studies over the summer. It was a lack of discipline pure and simple she felt, despite the fact that no homework was assigned over the summer months.

   Carefully she folded the letter in thirds and placed it in an envelope. She then placed it in the beak of an owl that was sitting on her window sill. 

   "Take this to Harry, and hurry," she said, patting the owl on the head.

   The owl seemed to nod in response before taking flight. Taking her pen up again, she decided to write a love letter to Ron. She nervously penned a few lines before laying her pen down. He wrote such lovely letters that made her shiver every time she read them. Writing this sort of letter was never something she was good at, and it always made her nervous to send one. A small pile of crumpled notes in her waste bin were proof enough of that.

   "Pull yourself together," she mumbled, "It's not as if this is a school paper I'm getting graded on. Goodness knows I wrote plenty of letters to Viktor."

  Thinking of the things she liked most about her boyfriend she settled into writing him a letter. At first it was slow but the longer she wrote the easier it was. Finally she laid her pen down and read it to herself quietly. Shivering with delight she lovingly signed it. The letter needed more though. She looked around her room as if to spot whatever it was missing. Then she remembered her mother telling her how she used to perfume her letters to her father. A good idea except she didn't own perfume, and she was fairly certain her mother didn't have any either. 

   Inspiration hit her as she stared out her window. Her mother's flower garden! Searching through her school things, she found the small folding knife that she used to trim her quills. Quietly she made her way down stairs and to her mother's rose garden. Selecting a small budding rose, she started to cut it away from the bush. She winced in pain as a thorn pierced the tip of her finger. Sucking on her bleeding finger she also realized her knife was extremely dull. Not knowing how to sharpen it without magic she managed to cut the rose from the bush without butchering the stem too badly. 

  Once inside with her newly freed rose she trimmed the end with a large pair of scissors. After dipping the cut end in wax from a burning candle, she made her way back upstairs. Smiling she tied the rose to her letter with a piece of red ribbon and placed it in a small cardboard box she had salvaged from the post a few days prior. 

   It would be that evening before an owl came that she could send the box with, so she sat daydreaming of the beginning of the school term.

-*-

   Many miles away and several hours later a young Harry Potter welcomed a large white owl into his window. He eagerly opened the letter it carried in its beak and started reading it before he'd even unfolded it all the way. It was nice to be receiving letters from his friends for a change. It was from his friend Ron Weasley.

            _Dear Harry,_

_School will be starting soon, Dad said they'd started filling out the invitations already. Fred told me this would be our easiest year yet. It would have to be don't you think? Considering what happened last year, and with the O.W.Ls. Anyway, they say the books will be expensive again as usual. _

_Heard from Hermione the other day, she's fine. Ginny says "Hi". Write back soon._

_Ron_

_P.S. Do you think Professor Green will be back this year? I hope so._

   Harry smiled and folded the letter back into the envelope and gave Hedwig a pat on the head. He was looking forward to an easy year. All the years up to this point had almost ended in his death or had ended in the death of someone near him. Voldemort was dead and gone though, he'd seen the body himself. If there was one piece of wisdom he'd taken to heart from his Uncle Gene it was this: Always, always check the bodies. He thought Gene had meant it figuratively but it was always a wise thing to do literally.

   The invitations were being prepared already? He had no idea it took so much time in advance to prepare for a school year. It was at least a month before the invitations would arrive. Having a best friend whose father was Minister of Magic was going to come in handy he could tell. 

   He didn't know if Professor Green would be back, though he sincerely hoped he would be. There had been quite an uproar when everyone found out a real muggle was teaching Muggle Studies. That was nothing compared to the reaction when everyone found out the Dark Lord was defeated by muggles, though. Even with the new tolerance for muggles he'd been hearing about from Hermione, he doubted seriously that Hogwarts would be admitting a muggle teacher again. He'd been surprised before though.

-*-

   Ron Weasley lounged about on his family's living room sofa reading a well worn Quidditch magazine. It had been a long boring summer and he missed his girlfriend terribly. His mother had been frantic since his farther was made Minister of Magic. She insisted on making the house more "presentable" as she expected visitors at any time. While it was true his father was entertaining guests on occasion, he mostly preferred to keep his work and private lives separate.

   It wasn't as if no one knew they weren't well to do. The Weasley family had never been rich. His brothers Fred and George seemed to be changing that with their new joke shop though. Every so often they'd send a small amount of money home in thanks for all their parents had done for them, and put up with. Along with his father's increase in salary, it finally looked like he and his sister would be getting new clothing this year. Books wouldn't be a problem either as they only had to buy books for two.

   His wand was perhaps what he was most proud of. Professor Green had crafted several superb wands the previous year. The wands were unique in that they contained more then one magical component. He wasn't quite sure what two were in his, but he did know that most of the materials were gleaned from near Hogwarts. Unicorn and spider hair were the most probable choices. They were also quite a bit more powerful then the average wand and he didn't just give or sell them to anyone. Harry was the only one who received one that he knew didn't use it, preferring his phoenix feather core wand.

   "Where is that bloody owl," he said as he jumped up from the sofa and walked into the kitchen. He peered out the window and gazed up at he sky looking for signs of an owl.

   "Waiting for Hermione's letter?" a female voice from behind him asked.

   Startled, Ron hit the top of his head on the opened window and cursed. "Don't sneak up on me like that, Ginny," he said, rubbing his head and cursing under his breath.

   He turned around to see his sister Ginny, once a small red headed girl. Over the last several months though, she'd grown and developed a bit of a figure. She was leaner then the twins but didn't have the gangly appearance of Ron either. Mercifully, the family resemblance leaned more towards her mother then her brothers and father.

   "I haven't got a note from Harry either," she said, "The owls normally aren't this slow."

   "I know," Ron replied, "It's strange, but they come. They are sending them from muggle cities you know."

   Ginny nodded and stared out the window for a few moments, "I can't wait to get back to school."

   "Can't wait to see Harry you mean," Ron teased. Ginny rolled her eyes and walked off. Ron shrugged and looked back out the window.

-*-

   A quarter of the way around the world, and in the heat of the afternoon an old red and white pickup truck made it's way down a dusty Texas road. From the inside of the pickup looking out there was nothing as far as the eye could see. The High Plains stretched for miles in every direction, the flatness only deviating slightly in the form of small ripples in the land. It looked very much like an endless, grassy ocean. The effect was only heightened by the wind blowing across the grass giving the appearance of waves. A small herd of antelope raced the truck along the barbed wire fence that lined the road, not looking much different then schools of dolphin swimming alongside a ship. Keeping up for a short while but ultimately conceding to the truck the antelope stared at it as it moved off into the distance. 

   The two men inside the vehicle sat silent, staring out into the distance. The one in the passenger seat was a younger man with black hair and a set of small square rimmed glasses. He had a rather average if not plain look about him. In fact nearly everything about his appearance suggested "medium" and "average". Like the sort of person you'd see, and talk to but only remember in the back of your mind. His nearly hazel eyes sparkled as they passed a small water filled pond used to feed cattle. 

   The other man, obviously the young man's father was much shorter and heavier of build. His mostly graying hair gave the impression of age, but his muscular build and nearly wrinkle free skin said otherwise. He depressed the brake pedal with his foot and turned right onto a larger paved highway. Soon they came upon a two story white house out in the middle of nowhere. The old man parked the pickup and the two hopped. A small and very attractive Hispanic woman ran out of the house towards them.

   "Samuel!" she said as she jumped to hug him. The young man caught her easily and hugged her back. "Maria!" he said as he kissed her, "I'm glad to see you too." She kissed him and then hugged the older man.

   "So is everything ok, Gene?" Maria asked the old man, "You've been gone for days."

   "Yeah, it was just a broken clamp. We had to take the whole rig apart to get to it though," Gene replied, "Honestly I don't know why they don't replace the whole thing."

   "Because if they did, you'd quit coming out there to fix it," Maria replied.

   "She's right," Samuel said, "Mrs. Estrada likes you."

   Gene muttered, "Well like me or not, they'll have to replace the whole pump soon or they won't have any water. Speaking of water, I need a shower."

   Gene walked into the house and slammed the door behind himself. Maria stared at Samuel quizzingly.

   "What's his problem?" asked Maria.

   "He doesn't like the fact that things wear out and that people won't replace them before they do," Samuel said, "He's been fixing that old pump for decades, he's just mad they didn't get a new one sooner."

   "Not everyone can afford it," Maria commented.

   "He offered to build them one for free," Samuel said, "It's a long standing source of irritation for him."

   "Why does he keep fixing it then?" Maria asked.

   "There is the contradiction that is Gene Evans," Samuel said, laughing.

   "I guess so," Maria said, staring at the door and shaking her head. "Oh, James received an invitation from Hogwarts today."

   "Really? I didn't think those were sent out for another few weeks," Samuel said,

   "This one is dated a week ago," Maria said, "I think they sent his early so he'd have time to decide."

   "Makes sense, is he going?"

   "He wants to," Maria said, "Hasn't talked to Gene about it yet obviously."

   "I'm sure he can, Elanus is supposed to be in next week, so it's not like Dad would have to pay for airfare."

   "Since when has Gene ever balked at spending money on things like that?" Maria asked.

   "Never, thankfully," Samuel answered.

   "Do you think it's wise?" asked Maria.

   "What?"

   "Him going back, after what happened last year. He won't get the same kind of education he would get here," she responded.

   "He'd just attend the private school here," Samuel replied, "He's already on a post high school level in reading, and math. Everything else they teach at Hogwarts just like any other school."

   Maria nodded and smiled up at Samuel, "Shall we go inside?"

   "Yes we should," Samuel said, extending his elbow.

   Maria smiled, took his arm and followed him inside the house. A young man was sitting in a large reclining chair, somewhat sprawled out. He wore baggy jeans, a slightly oversized t-shirt and was most definitely Gene's youngest son. The resemblance was undeniable. His dark blonde hair was spiked and in his hands he held some sort of portable video game.

   "James, get off that lazy rear end and heat supper," Maria snapped.

   "Already did, it's simmering," James replied, not looking up from his game, "Are you going back to Hogwarts this Fall Samuel?"

   "I haven't been invited," Samuel replied, "And I hate it when you talk to me without making eye contact."

   "That's why I do it," James said as he turned his game off, "How did the Estrada repairs go?"

   "Dismal, as usual," Samuel replied, "Good food though."

   Maria muttered something under her breath. "Well at least you came home to her, she was a complete basket case the whole time you were gone," James commented, "Really leaving your wife so soon after the marriage."

   "Aww, did you miss me?" Samuel asked Maria.

   "A lot," Maria replied, hugging Samuel.

   "Get a room," James said, "I'm going to go check on the stew."

   James walked off into the kitchen. Maria stuck her tongue out at him and giggled. Samuel rolled his eyes and sat down on the sofa. Maria cuddled up next to him.

   "What about you? Do you want to go back to England this year?" she asked.

   "I do miss the children, and Elanus has been telling me a lot of good things," Samuel replied, "Do you want to go back?"

   Maria leaned back slightly and thought for a moment. "I've thought about it, and yes. I would be fun. That fencing class was fun to teach and the countryside was beautiful."

   Gene stepped into the living room, still slightly damp from his shower and sat down in the big chair James had been sitting in. "Whoa," he said, lifting up a bit. He reached behind himself and pulled out James' game. Muttering he sat the game on the floor beside the chair.

   "A little uncomfortable?" Samuel asked.

   Gene rocked his hand side to side, "You better clean up so your lady doesn't run from you gagging."

   "I like how he smells after a good sweat," Maria commented.

   "That wasn't something I needed to know," Gene said with a chuckle.

   "Stew's Done!" James yelled from the kitchen.

   The three in the living room got up and headed for the kitchen. Soon after the meal was finished and the dishes cleaned they all sat in the living room.

   "Dad," James said, "I need to talk to you about something."

   "What's that?" Gene asked.

   "I got an invitation to Hogwarts," James replied.

   "Oh really, and?" Gene asked.

   "I'd like to go if we can manage it," James answered.

   "I think we can, we'll have to pull you out of the school here though," Gene said.

   "That's ok, I was gone all of last year practically, I flunked that grade."

   "I see, well I guess we'll put you on the plane to England this August," Gene said.

   "Really? Thank you," James said.

   "What about you Samuel? Are you teaching again this year?" Gene asked.

   "I haven't received any word yet," Samuel replied, "Elanus is supposed to be here next week, he'll know."

   Gene nodded, "Well I'm sure they haven't decided yet."

   Samuel shrugged, "Doesn't matter to me, I can always go back to programming or rejoin the Slayers."

   "Why'd you quit?" Maria asked.

   "To be with you silly," he said tickling her.

   "Stop," she giggled.

   Later that night Samuel and Maria were lying together in the smallish bed in his room. The moonlight reflected off the guitars on the wall and a slight breezed gently ruffled the curtains.

   "I have had fantasies about this room, and not that I mind the closeness but could we get a bigger bed?" she asked.

   "We'll have one soon as the house is finished," Samuel said.

   "It was so nice of him to build us a house," Maria commented.

   "Yes, it was," Samuel replied, "Dad has always been generous."

   "How rich is he?" she asked.

   "I don't know, but I do know that with the money I made selling those wands we'll be well furnished when it's done," Samuel replied.

   "Well good night my love," Maria said, kissing him.

   "Good night," he said, kissing her back.

  The two drifted slowly to sleep in each other's arms. Outside the house a dark figure stood in the road, watching silently. A car sped by, ruffling a long black robe of some sort. Soon the figure disappeared into the quiet night. A coyote could be heard howling in the distance, then the roar of a bull. Finally all was still, save for two hooded figures speeding towards the house from miles away on what appeared to be broomsticks.


	2. An Evans Breakfast

Chapter 2: An Evans Breakfast

**Author's Note: **_I'd like to dedicate this chapter to the family dog, Gus. He had been a loyal dog and served my family well for nearly fifteen years. Sadly his arthritis was so bad we couldn't let him suffer anymore. _

   Samuel woke up with the sun and turned over to see that Maria had already woken up. Listening carefully he could hear the sounds of his family bustling about the house. He called it "Family Noise". Every morning his family made distinctive noises about the house as they went on with their morning rituals and chores. He could hear his brother taking a shower upstairs, and his father chatting to Maria as he sharpened the kitchen knives and she prepared breakfast. Soon he'd add his own sound to the rhythm of the household. Something was decidedly different from the familiar noise this morning. Most people wouldn't have noticed, but there were two other people in the house he didn't know. He quickly put on his clothing and walked across the hall to the bathroom. Combing his hair he listened harder. Elanus, perhaps? He was known for coming early but he would be recognized, fitting into the sounds perfectly. No it was someone he didn't know. A man, and by the sounds of the footsteps, another woman was in the house too. Curious, he put his glasses on and stepped quietly out into the living area. 

   A lanky young man about his own age was sitting on the sofa. Curly hair topped his head and he had an oddly familiar way of sitting. He was dressed in robes of some sort and held a copy of the Amarillo Globe News in his hands. A woman was pacing across the living room, quite nervous. She wrapped a lock of long auburn hair around her fingers and chewed on her lip. Her dress was similar to the young man's, possibly a uniform of some sort.

  "Oh do sit down Bethany," the young man said, "Read part of this paper, it's quite entertaining."

   Samuel walked slowly into the kitchen and stood beside his father. "Dad do you realize there are wizards in our living room?"

   "That shouldn't big a surprise," Gene chuckled, "They came in this morning. Go introduce yourself. I think the boy is related to Arthur somehow."

   Samuel nodded and walked back into the living room where the girl was still pacing. Samuel put his hand on her shoulder and she let out a tremendous yelp. "Calm down, lady," Samuel said, extending his hand, "I'm Samuel Evans, and you are?"

   "Don't sneak up on people like that," she snapped, "Bethany Grider, Ministry of Magic."

   She shook his hand and stared at him nervously, still chewing on her bottom lip. 

"Don't mind her Samuel, she's never been in a muggle home before," the young man said as he lowered his newspaper.

   "Percy Weasley?" Samuel asked, "I thought you looked familiar, you sound like your father."

   "I'll take that as a compliment," Percy replied as he stood up and shook Samuel's hand.

   "You weren't with your family here at Christmas last year," Samuel commented.

   "We had a bit of a falling out, I sided with Fudge on a few issues. Became his assistant and all that," Percy said.

   "What do you do now?" asked Samuel.

   "Well after it became apparent that Fudge was betraying us I made amends with my father. He let me retain my position after he became Minister," Percy replied, "its better now and I can get away with more," he chuckled.

   "The next question is what brings you here?" Samuel asked.

   "Father wanted me to come invite you back to Hogwarts this year. Dumbledore was in agreement and they both thought that a personal invitation would be best."

   "Well I'd love to come back then," Samuel replied, "I miss the students already."

   "There's also another problem," Bethany said, still pacing.

   "There's always a problem," Samuel commented.

   "We need to you be a councilor again," Percy said, "There are a lot of children who are still having problems with what went on last year and the things they saw. You did an excellent job last year, we were hoping you could fill that role again."

   Samuel stared at them both, "I'll discuss this in detail after coffee, it's still early," he replied and walked into the kitchen.

   When he arrived in the kitchen, Gene picked up a cup of coffee and handed it to him. "Thought you'd need this," he said. He then picked up a ceramic rod and continued sharpening his knives on it. Samuel drank from the cup and blinked his eyes a few times.

   "Much better," Samuel said, "They want me to go back to Hogwarts."

   "Are you going?" Gene asked.

   "I'm way too caffeine deprived to make that decision right now," Samuel said.

   "I think we should," Maria commented as she transferred bacon from a skillet to a plate covered by a paper towel.

   "Why's that?" asked Samuel.

   "You obviously want to," Maria said as she drained some of the bacon grease into an old coffee can, "besides we all know how you hate job hunting, and where else can you have lunch with a ghost?"

   "Are you alright with the arrangement?" he asked Maria, "We don't have to make a decision immediately you know."

   "Oh please, we're already packed," Maria replied.

   "What about you dad?" asked Samuel.

   "I don't know what I have to do with it. Albus said there'd be a place for me there should I ever want to come visit," Gene replied finishing the last knife.

   "I know you don't like being alone for long," Samuel said.

   "What are you trying to talk yourself out of this like you do everything else?" Gene asked. "Listen, I was thinking about coming anyway, Albus invited me to teach metalworking. I haven't given him a reply yet, but I think I will. Maria's family can take care of the house."

   "Alright, alright," Samuel said.

   "He's going!" Maria called into the living room.

   "Glad to hear it," Percy responded.

   "Why would a wizard school need a metal shop teacher?" asked Samuel.

   "Obviously they don't," Gene responded, "Dumbledore and the Minister wish to keep an eye on me."

   "Breakfast is ready!" Maria called. The sound of hurried footsteps was heard, a thud and Percy stood in the kitchen. James came walking in behind him, rubbing his side.

   "Sorry, with as many siblings as I have," Percy apologized.

   "He's used to it," Samuel snickered.

   "Bethany you better get in here, it's a long trip back," Percy said.

   Bethany shuffled into the kitchen shyly and stood out of the way. The Evans' and Percy bowed their heads and Gene prayed over the food. The group moved about the kitchen, filling their plates buffet style. They then ate in the living room as the dining room table was too cluttered. 

   "This is really good," Bethany said as she took another bite of what looked like scrambled eggs with potatoes. 

   "Thank you," Maria replied.

   "We don't get stuff like this back home," Percy commented, "The humidity makes the food soggy."

   "How are you two getting home?" Gene asked.

   "We have a portkey that will return us," Percy said, "If you like we can stay a few days and we can all return together."

   "Well, Elanus is supposed to be here early next week, I imagine he will take us," Gene replied.

   "Dad, why don't we send him a message?" James asked, "Might save him the trouble."

   "I think that would be a good idea, or maybe they can stay until he gets here?" asked Samuel.

   "Can't hurt," Gene said, "If that's agreeable with you two."

   "Of course," Percy said, "I've always wanted to meet Elanus Green."

   Bethany turned to Percy, "How will the Minister react?"

   "If Gene Evans wants us to stay," Percy replied, "He doesn't have much choice. Besides, he told us to do whatever it took to get these people to Hogwarts."

   Samuel glanced at his father, who shrugged almost unnoticeably in response. The day went on and Samuel mailed a letter to his cousin. It would take several days at the least to reach England. Hopefully Elanus would get it before then. Elanus had charmed a box of envelopes so they would always manage to find the best route to their destination. It would take weeks for a bird to reach England, but the Postal Service could accomplish the trip in a matter of hours if need be.

   Days later a tall man in his middle years walked into a London post office. He seemed somewhat out of place in the particular quarter of town he was in. His hair was black, save two streaks of gray above each ear. Elegantly dressed, he carried himself with the demeanor of and English gentleman, possibly nobility. Opening the mailbox he retrieved a letter addressed to Elanus Green. He touched the envelope to a ring around his finger. The stamp on the envelope flickered a bright green for a moment. Nodding he opened the letter.

_Dear Elanus,_

_   Percy Weasley and a woman by the name of Bethany Grider arrived at our house a few days ago, or at least they will have been here a few days by the time you read it. They offered to bring us to __England__ via portkey after we're ready._

_   We thought it best to write you before we did anything. Looking forward to your reply._

_Love,_

_Samuel_


	3. The Workings of Wizards

**Chapter 3: The Workings of Wizards**

**Author's Note: **_Sorry this took so long to post, I wanted to get a few chapters ahead so I could release them closer together. Thanks for you patience!_

   Elanus Green sat behind his desk at the Ministry of Magic, reading a report from one of his underlings. Sighing, he leaned back in his chair. Being the head of the Department of Mysteries was certainly rewarding if stressful. Part of him couldn't wait to go to Texas and visit his uncle and cousins for a few days. He desperately needed the break, and soon he'd get it, but he had to get through one more day. 

   His job had been made more stressful after last year's victory over Voldemort. A dozen dark wizards had decided to mimic the dead Dark Lord and his department was responsible for seeing if they were a real threat. On top of the idiots pretending to be Voldemort reborn, there was the matter of finding out what Voldemort had been hiding. Uncle Gene and Samuel had made it clear that they felt Voldemort was afraid of something even worse then him.

   There had been no leads so far as to finding out what this was. All of the Dark Lord's secret caches had been found and picked clean. Every surviving Death Eater had been questioned under the most powerful truth potions that could be concocted. Less ethical means had been used on some. A muggle detective had even let them use an old polygraph machine that he'd salvaged from his station. Absolutely nothing had been found.

   Gene had even written extensive letters to Elanus detailing what he saw inside Voldemort's head. Samuel has provided everything he knew as well. Whatever it was, Voldemort kept no record of it, and told no one about it. 

   Arthur was up to something as well, and he didn't like not knowing what. He knew that Samuel was going to be invited back to Hogwarts to teach. It was unusual to send two wizards to invite him personally. He had checked this Grider woman's files and found that she was an Auror. Not only was she an Auror but she was a good one. Two awards for exemplary service and she'd even managed to bag a rather devious Voldemort imposter with little help from anyone else. Likely she could have given Mad-Eye Moody a run for his money if she'd graduated Hogwarts a few years prior.  

   Percy was Arthur's son and assistant and had been Fudge's assistant the year prior. While not technically a high position in the hierarchy of the Ministry, he did have access to things that almost no one else did. The only exception, of course, being Elanus' personal files which no one had access to. Arthur would not have sent his assistant, much less his own son to the States with an Auror like Miss Grider unless it was very important. Elanus rubbed his chin for a moment. The Minister must have thought that there would be some sort of danger involved.

   It couldn't be for Gene and his family's protection, he reasoned. No wizard could use magic near Gene unless he wanted them to, not even Dumbledore. If he didn't want a wizard to use magic, there wasn't anything they could do about it. 

   "Dumbledore and Arthur must know something I don't," Elanus said under his breath, "I have to find out."

   Finally he was able to leave work. He'd slipped out of the building earlier the day before to retrieve a letter from a muggle post office and had been caught. Of course he couldn't be reprimanded and he was in no trouble, but he'd never been caught before. Someone was keeping a pretty close watch on him lately and he didn't like that. He walked out of his office to say goodbye to his secretary for the day. She was a pretty auburn haired witch with many talents he held in high regard. 

   "Leaving early today?" She asked.

   "A little, you can to if you wish, we're all caught up for the week," he replied.

   "You'll be leaving for Liverpool then I take it?" she asked.

   "I'm visiting my uncle in Texas," he said quietly.

   "I have it written on your schedule that you'll be in Liverpool for the next few days," she said, winking at him.

   "Of course," he said smiling.

   She was very good. He hadn't thought about it much, but it was probably wise if no one knew exactly where he was. Hopefully he'd be back within a day or two and the only two wizards that knew where he really was were already in Texas. It would take weeks for an owl to deliver a message and by that time they'd already be back.

   Today he'd Apparate home. It was one of those rare days he didn't feel much like walking. The Ministry didn't like people Apparating into the complex, but didn't much care if people went out that way. Still most people apparated out near one of the guards. It was a bit of a holdover from the old days when apparating wasn't well understood and people occasionally needed help.

   Elanus nodded to one of the guards and Apparated to his house. His home was a bit on the small side and "untouched by female hands" as his mother used to comment. He had never married, of course. Work was always his first priority. Soon after graduating he'd worked under Arthur Weasley for a time and then went on to become an Unspeakable. Many Unspeakables were not married, and those that were married, were usually married to other Unspeakables. Too many secrets had to be kept. It simply wasn't good for the relationship.

   After an hour's rest he decided he might as well get on with it. It'd be closer to noon in Texas when he arrived and it had already been a long day. He picked up a small black canvas bag that he'd packed earlier and a small disk shaped object. Most of his inventions took on a disk shape, he found it to be most convenient and liked consistency. This particular object helped him Apparate over distances that would normally require a Portkey. Few people in the Department of Mysteries had one, and fewer people outside the Department even knew they existed. He set the longitude and latitude on two small dials on the disk and pressed a button in the center. Instantly he found himself in the middle of a grassy plain. A short distance away he saw a two story white house with a storage shed next to it.

   He walked along a well worn path towards the house. In his younger years he came here to help his Uncle Gene and learn about metal crafting. He had made everything from horse shoes to semi-complicated parts for broken well pumps and the occasional oil rig in the shed. A smile crossed his face as he stepped up to the door of the house and knocked. James answered the door a short while later and grinned.

   "Well get in here!" James said, shaking Elanus' hand, "About time you showed up."

   "Elanus!" Maria cried as she ran into the room.

   "Well hello! How are you?" Elanus asked.

   "Very good," Maria said, "Everyone is in the kitchen eating. Can I fix you something?"

   "No I ate before I left," Elanus said, "Thank you though."

   "You know where to unpack," James said, "Glad to have you back."

   "Good to be here," Elanus said as he climbed the stairs and opened a door in the middle of the upstairs hallway. This was his home away from home. His room was a bit on the small side but it was his nonetheless. Even in his forties he still got the same sense of excitement when he threw his pack on the small bed as he did when he was a teenager. The room had definitely changed over the years, a testament to how much he really visited.

   Force of habit caused him to pull a change of clothing out of the closet and take a quick shower. He'd flown on airplanes as a teenager, and for most of his young adult life. The long trip was stressful for him and the shower helped him adjust, and smell better. Even though ten minutes before he'd been sitting on his chair in England, the shower helped. 

   After he dressed he went downstairs and to the kitchen to greet everyone. The family and two visitors were sitting around the kitchen table enjoying dessert when he walked in.

   Gene stood up after quickly wiping his hands and throwing his napkin down on the table. "Elanus! When did you get in? I heard the shower," he asked shaking Elanus' hand.

   "About twenty minutes ago, thought I'd clean up before coming in here," Elanus replied.

   Samuel and Percy stood up and greeted Elanus cheerfully. Bethany sat frozen in her seat, just staring up at Elanus. "You must be Bethany Grider," Elanus said, offering his hand to shake.

   Bethany stood up with a jerk and shook Elanus' hand stiffly, "Yes, sir!" she nearly shouted.

   "Is she always this uptight?" asked Elanus.

   "Pretty much," Percy replied.

   Bethany blushed and sat down slowly. Elanus pulled up a chair and relaxed, talking to his family. It was definitely good to be back. Once everyone had finished eating the table was cleared. Dishes were cleaned and put away and the kitchen was tidied up.

   Eventually everyone made their way into the living room where they generally relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. The heat of the afternoon soon turned to the cool evening. It wasn't long before everyone was entertaining each other with their talents. Samuel played his guitar, and they all took turns fencing with each other outside. Maria and Samuel taught Percy and Bethany the basics while everyone else watched. The two wizards enchanted soda cans to dance and other such novelties. Once the sun set they all returned to the living room and sat down.

   "I never knew muggles had so much fun!" Bethany commented.

   "If you thought that was fun, wait 'til we go into town tomorrow," James commented.

   "I hate to change the subject," Elanus said, "But why exactly did Arthur send you two?"

   Bethany fidgeted in her seat and Percy leaned back and looked at her. "I knew this would come up," Percy said, "We're supposed to give you some rehearsed answer, but I'll be honest with you."

   "Percy we can't," Bethany interrupted.

   "I know what dad told us, and I also know how to read between the lines," Percy said, "Basically, there are some in the wizard world that are afraid of Gene and Samuel. There are others that want to exploit the two of you, and a few that would like to see you gone altogether."

   "I suppose you two were sent here for our protection?" asked Samuel.

   "Not exactly, we're supposed to bring you back to England," Percy said, "One way or another. The Ministry is a bit spoiled. They're used to getting what they want, when they want and don't much care how they get it. Everyone related to you is being watched, and closely."

   "Including me," Elanus muttered.

   "But why?" asked Maria.

   "Everything has changed in the last several months," Percy replied, "All of the old families have been displaced. The centers of influence have changed drastically. A lot of older wizards are scared that what little power they have left will be stripped away."

   "So basically they're looking for any excuse to throw their weight around and get rid of a threat?" asked Samuel.

   "Not so much that as there are those who want to return to the old ways," Bethany interjected.

   "What do you mean?" asked Gene.

   "Well, there are some wizards who sympathized with Voldemort's pureblood sentiments. They want to revive the pureblood families. They see muggle blood as tainted, though they don't agree with his methods. These revivalists see Arthur as a bit of a threat. His new muggle policies are very much against their way of thinking. He talks to Dumbledore frequently and they've all heard rumors of the Opposites. They're scared that the Minister could easily get rid of anyone that speaks against him," Bethany continued.

   "Why didn't he approach Elanus with all this?" asked Samuel.

   "Dad's being watched too," Percy said, "We find people spying on our house all the time. He finds magic watching devices and on a few occasions, muggle video cameras, in trees overlooking our home. Dad is afraid to be seen talking to anyone connected to last year's incident."

   "That doesn't sound much like Arthur. He's not the sort to skulk around just because he thinks people are watching," Elanus said.

   "Afraid may be a bit to strong of a word. He's smart enough to not be caught talking to people he shouldn't. You know how Ministry politics are," Percy commented.

   "So if we're such a problem why does he want us back in England?" asked Samuel.

   "We don't know, that's Dumbledore's doing. They do need good teachers who were there last year though," Percy answered, "There are a good number of children who were traumatized, so to speak. Many of those children are in homes where their parents don't believe what happened really happened."

   "How could they doubt it?" Maria asked, "They saw Voldemort hanged."

   Percy leaned forward and thought for a moment then glanced at Bethany. "You must understand how wizards are. Many have a very superior attitude and are very ashamed when they're afraid of things. They see Voldemort hanged, and suddenly he wasn't so powerful. If a muggle could save us, then things weren't as bad as we thought," said Bethany. "It's easier to believe something horrible didn't happen then to accept the fact that it did. Look at how they treated Harry Potter. Almost all thought he'd defeat Voldemort, he was a hero. He was so much of a hero that they were quite willing to throw a child at the Dark Lord to save themselves. When it was all said and done, and their own cowardice was brought to light, they didn't like it so much."

   "The wizard world has a problem with rewriting events to make it look better. Why do you think muggle history and wizard history books read so different? It's not a different point of view so much as it is wizard historians trying to make wizards look smarter. What do you think the reason for those awful statues in the fountain at the Ministry are? Most wizards think they're better then the centaurs, house elves and goblins. Everyone else is inferior for some reason. It's sickening," Percy commented.

   "You seem awfully put off by it," James said.

   "When you come from one of the poorest families in the wizard world, you tend to get picked on a lot," Percy said.

   "You had the same superior attitude in school," Bethany said, "Especially after you became a prefect."

   "I was younger and stupider. People change," Percy replied.

   "Well I'm anxious to get back and talk to him," Elanus said, "I'd like to spend a few days here first. I'm in need of a vacation."

   "Of course," Gene said, "Why don't we leave at the end of this week. We'll need to get the house ready anyway."

   The next few days passed wonderfully for the family. For the most part it was spent relaxing and preparing for the journey. A day or two before the departure date Bethany woke up to the sound of the loud, steady clanging of metal against metal. She looked out the window of the guest room she was sleeping in and saw the door of the shed open. It was still dark outside, even though it was about six in the morning. "I could get used to the sun not rising so early," she said under her breath. The clanging continued a moment longer, then stopped briefly and returned again. Bethany wrapped a terry cloth robe around herself and got out of bed. Strangely no one was up, or so she thought. Gene was sitting in the living room smiling to himself and reading a book.

   "What's that noise?" Bethany asked.

   "I like to call it high impact aroma and steam therapy," Gene said, looking up from his book, "Go out to the shed, you'll see," he said smiling.

   Bethany opened the door and walked out to the shed along a walkway made of large granite blocks. The air was crisp but the closer she moved towards the shed the warmer it became. Just before she arrived at the door of the shed, a gust of wind kicked up blowing leaves and other debris around. She looked towards the sky and gasped. The sunrise had painted the sky and clouds in vivid oranges, reds, purples and blues that were rare even on a clear day in England. The clanging stopped for a few brief moments then resumed again. Her attention snapped back to the shed. Carefully she peeked in the door and was surprised at what she saw.

   Elanus was standing in front of an old anvil pounding on something red and glowing. He wore a tight fitting short sleeved black t-shirt like the ones she often saw muggles wearing at the train stations and a pair of heavy denim jeans. The muscles in his arms showed prominently as he brought the hammer down on the glowing metal. Sparks flew from the metal and hit the heavy leather apron he was wearing. Some simply extinguished when they hit, but a few rolled down the apron and hit the concrete floor of the shed before dimming.

   "You can come in," Elanus said, not looking away from his work.

   Bethany let out a start then walked into the large shed nervously. She was startled by the heat coming off of a small furnace of some sort. The first thing she noticed however, was the sharp smell of the heated steel as she walked closer.

   "What are you making, sir?" she asked.

   "I'm not sure yet. A knife, maybe a dinner plate, the metal hasn't told me yet," Elanus commented.

   "This is a very quaint workshop," Bethany said as she looked around.

   "Antiquated, if not archaic by muggle standards," Elanus said as he placed the metal inside the clay furnace and started pumping a large wooden lever up and down. As he brought the lever down heat washed from the furnace, making Bethany squint and cough for air. When the lever was pulled up the heat disappeared and she could feel the air rushing away from her. The coals inside the furnace glowed brighter as he worked the bellows.

   "What do you mean?" asked Bethany.

   Elanus continued pumping the bellows for a few moments as he looked in the furnace. "Well for one, most people would use a gas furnace instead of this wood burning one. Some have machines to do the hammering for them, and this anvil is more then a century old. The only things new about this workshop is Uncle Gene replaced the leather on the bellows with some sort of synthetic fabric, the tools are new, and he finally bought and electric grinder," Elanus said, indicating a small machine of some sort with two grinding wheels attached and a cord running into the wall. "He still uses the big manual ones over there though," he said, pointing to two large grinding wheels attached to some sort of mechanical contraption. Elanus returned to the furnace and using a set of tongs he removed the piece of metal from it and placed it on the anvil. He began pounding on it again and turned it over occasionally.

   "Why don't you just enchant these things to do the hard work?" Bethany asked.

   "It's more gratifying to work with your hands," Elanus replied, "Put on an apron and I'll show you."

   Bethany turned around and saw several thick leather aprons hanging from hooks along the wall opposite the furnace. She took off her robe and tied the apron around herself. Elanus looked her over and chuckled.

  "What?" Bethany asked.

  "You aren't the first woman to come out here and help work, but you're certainly the first to do it in a silk night gown," Elanus said. Bethany blushed and looked for something to do.

  "Alright, start pumping that lever up and down," Elanus said as he returned the metal to the furnace. Bethany wrapped her hands around the lever and began moving it up and down. The bellows didn't give way easily and she could feel the pressure being released slowly. She wasn't as tall as Elanus so she had to stretch a bit to get the lever to its peak. While not very hard work, after several strokes her muscles began to ache a little. She noticed after a while that the metal in the furnace began to glow brightly and Elanus smiled.

   "You pick up the rhythm quickly," he said as he took the metal out of the furnace.

   "How many times do you have to do that?" she asked.

   "Until the piece is done," Elanus said simply, "I think this will be a knife. I'm a little out of practice so it won't be all that pretty."

   Bethany nodded and watched in amazement as the metal began to take shape. After several more trips to the furnace and bellows the blade was taking on a recognizable shape. It was to be a simple, one edged knife suitable for utility work. As it neared what she thought was completion she heard footsteps along the walk. She turned around to see Gene walking out to the shed.

   "Good morning uncle," Elanus said.

   "Good morning to you," Gene replied. "What do we have here?" he asked, looking Bethany over, "I think she's the best dressed of anybody we've ever had out here."

   "The nightgown is a nice touch, I'll admit," Elanus said.

   Bethany blushed again and stepped out of Gene's way as he stepped up to the anvil. "How's it coming," he asked Elanus. Elanus handed Gene the rapidly cooling knife blade and smiled. Gene looked it over meticulously, tapped it a few times and examined the back of the blade.

  "Nearly perfect," Gene said. The swell of pride that flowed through Elanus was noticeable and somewhat contagious as Bethany felt it too. She could see in Elanus' eyes what he meant about gratification. He respected the old man and hung on to his every word. Gene showed Elanus the few flaws in the blade and told him what to do to correct them. His spirits dropped slightly though, when Gene pointed out something wrong with the blade's tang. She felt a bit angry at Gene for that and glared at him harshly. Didn't he know how hard Elanus had been working on it?

   Elanus nodded gratefully to Gene and returned the blade to the furnace. Bethany manned the bellows again and worked them hard, glaring at Gene. She didn't know why but she felt angry and at the same time she had the urge to do a good job in front of the old man. Gene smiled at her and nodded approvingly when Elanus took the blade from the furnace and began to gently shape it. After a few moments Gene gave a few encouraging words and soon the blade was finished. Elanus handed the blade to his uncle for inspection and Gene nodded with approval. The blade was returned to the furnace again then dipped in water. Three times Elanus did that and then sat down at what looked to be a big felt wheel set onto a foot turned contraption. 

   "Whoa!" said a voice from behind Bethany, "We have got to have her over more often is she's going to dress like that out here." Bethany spun around to see James standing behind her, and Maria close behind him.

   "James!" Maria said.

   "What, I was just commenting," James said, "How's the whatever you're making coming?"

   "Just finished shaping it!" Elanus called from the polisher.

   "He's a bit rusty," Gene said.

   "And I suppose you can do better?" Bethany snapped. Everyone fell silent and stared at Bethany.

   "Oh now you've done it," James said, "You've challenged the old man."

   "You see all those swords along that wall?" Maria asked Bethany.

   "Um, yes?" Bethany replied.

   "He made every single one of those, and the practice epees we use," Maria said, "He can do much better. However, if he intends to prove it today, he has to eat first," she said staring at Gene hard.

   "Yes ma'am," he said, taking a step backward.

   Maria turned on her heel and marched back into the house. James busied himself by moving a table into the center of the shed and setting a few shop chairs around it. Bethany replaced the apron for her robe and sat down at the table along with Gene, Elanus and James. Bethany eyed Gene warily as he twiddled his thumbs.

   "You want to see something neat?" Gene asked. "Samuel!" he called at the top of his voice. In an instant Samuel came running out the door and stood in front of his father.

   "Yes?" he asked.

   "This young woman has challenged me," Gene said.

   "And I assume my wife has postponed said challenge until after breakfast?" Samuel asked. Gene nodded in response. "That's good," Samuel said, "I'm starving."

   Maria returned shortly with a large covered platter in hand, and a groggy Percy trailing behind her. She placed the platter on the table and removed the cover as soon as Percy sat down.

   "Oooh, burritos," James said in approval. Maria smiled at him and sat down at the table next to her husband. Gene said a prayer over the food and every ate their fill. After breakfast and a chat Gene wiped his hands and face on a towel and smiled at Bethany.

   "The rule is, the challenger has to assist or compete," Gene said.

   "I wish to pick a champion," Bethany said, grinning at Gene.

   "She knows her stuff," Gene said, "Alright."

   "I pick Percy to assist," Bethany said with a grin.

   "Oh no, not me," Percy said.

   "You'd give me unskilled labor?" Gene jested, "It doesn't look like he's worked hard a day in his life."

   "I haven't," Percy agreed.

   "You're right, I suppose he's a little on the soft side," Bethany said, "Your oldest then? He doesn't look like he's used to it that much either."

   "Much better," Elanus said.

   "Oooh, bad choice of words," James said to Bethany.

   Maria smiled at Samuel and winked. "Well I suppose I can defend the young lady's honor," Samuel said reluctantly. Gene stood up and selected a steel bar from a barrel full of them. After examining the block he set it down on the anvil and donned his apron.

   "Damascus, fine choice," James said to Bethany in a mock sports announcer voice, "Makes a very resilient blade. It's difficult to forge, though. We'll see if the old man has still got it. Meanwhile Elanus sharpens his blade."

   Maria rolled her eyes at James, "Come on Bethany you need to get dressed," she said.

   "Yes ma'am, I'll hurry," she said running into the house excitedly.

   "Don't worry they won't start until you get back," Maria called.

   Gene and Samuel conferred with each other a few moments and called Elanus into their circle. The three talked for a few minutes before Elanus started back on his blade. Bethany came running out of the house in a t-shirt and a pair of jeans Maria had left for her and sat down at the table. "Did I miss anything?" Bethany asked.

   "Just the huddle, it seems they're going to go for speed today," James commented.

   "You're about to see a real master in action," Maria said.

   "I've really never seen muggles at work, this should be interesting," Percy said, "How long will it take?"

   "Dad and Elanus are both very good at this," James answered, "Dad and Samuel will have their blade shaped in about an hour, maybe two. He should be polishing and sharpening it by lunch time."

   "It's Damascus steel, a bit harder to work with then what Elanus used but I would imagine James is right," Maria said, "They'll probably have two complete knives by nightfall."

   Carefully Gene cut a section off the bar and inserted it into the furnace and nodded to Samuel. The younger man wrapped his hands around the bellows lever and started to work it. The embers in the furnace flared up and tiny wisps of flame could be seen leaping over the coals.

   "Wow, he's working them fast," Bethany commented.

   "He's been working them since he was five," James commented.

   The metal began to glow brightly and Samuel continued to work the bellows. Soon the steel was glowing white and Gene pulled it from the furnace and began hammering on it. Bethany blushed as she watched Gene work.

   "I thought Elanus' arms were impressive," Bethany whispered as she watched the hammer fall on the glowing steel.

   "Yes Gene is a very impressive man," Maria said.

   "Samuel doesn't look as big," Bethany observed.

   "He takes after his mother's side of the family," Maria commented, "His mother was Elanus' aunt. Believe me he's a lot stronger then he looks," she said with a wink.

   "I suppose James here takes after his dad?" asked Bethany.

   "Yes," Maria answered.

   "So it was a good thing I picked Samuel?" asked Bethany.

   "Probably not, we've done this before. Samuel is faster at what he does then I am. He's also very good with wood," James said, "So guess who gets to make the handle for dad's blade."

   "So Elanus is going to lose," Bethany surmised.

   "Probably, dad has several decades experience on him," James said, "He's good though."

   Bethany nodded and watched the men work. A couple of hours passed and Gene and Samuel finished their blade. Samuel took a break from the bellows and sat down while Gene manned the polisher. Elanus had returned to the table as well and set his blade down. It was a fine piece of metal and very sharp. The quality was almost professional and all the edges were straight and clean. Bethany smiled at Elanus and examined the blade.

   "What are you going to do for a handle?" she asked. 

   "Going to have you do that," Elanus said.

   "I don't know how to do that," Bethany said.

   "I've got two pieces of wood here and some red cord. Maria can get started attaching it. It's not hard," Elanus said. Maria smiled at Bethany and took the wood and the blade. She put the two halves of the handle to the blade and used two wooden pegs to attach them. Carefully she started winding the cord around the handle in a pattern and handed it to Bethany to finish.

   "Five winds of this and then we'll weave in some gold thread," Maria said.

   Percy watched with interest as the two women went to work on the handle. By the time they were done Gene was already sharpening his blade up and Samuel was carving a handle. Soon both handles were attached and the two men went to work putting the final edge on their blades. Maria served lunch and that evening the knives were done. Gene and Elanus handed their blades to Bethany for inspection. After carefully examining them she reached a decision.

   "Well, Gene's is prettier and a better knife I'll admit, but I like Elanus' knife better since I helped with it," she said.

   "I think they're pretty much equal," Gene said, "You can have mine."

   "You can have mine too," Elanus said.

   "Thank you both," Bethany said, "I'll remember this forever."

   Night fell and the family went to sleep. The days passed and the house was prepared to be left unattended for the next several months. Two large boxes were filled with the luggage and Elanus prepared to Apparate them all to his home in London. The trip was instantaneous for all practical purposes and they found themselves standing in Elanus' back yard. 

  



	4. To the Alley

Chapter 4: To the Alley

**Author's Note:**_ They're off!** _If you would all be so kind as to sign your reviews, even if you just put your first name, nick name or e-mail address (preferably your e-mail) at the bottom of the review I'd greatly appreciate it. I like to thank my reviewers personally and it's hard to do that without an e-mail address._**_

   The last lingering days of August were passing quickly and there was school shopping to be done. Bethany and Percy had left Elanus' house soon after they arrived though they made occasional visits. One bright Tuesday morning Elanus insisted that James go to Diagon Alley and pick his books and other supplies up. His cousin has been kind enough to place an order for them several weeks before and the bookshop had begun to send owls. After brief instructions about a pub and a brick wall Samuel and James set out for Diagon Alley. Elanus decided to give Gene a tour of the Ministry to avoid accidents in the highly magical alley.

   After negotiating the London trains and streets the two brothers found themselves on a rather ordinary looking street. In front of them was a book shop, and a record store beside it.

   "Didn't he say the pub was right here?" James whispered to Samuel.

   "Some sort of enchantment I'll bet," Samuel said, looking up and down the street.

   "I thought you weren't fooled by enchantments," James commented.

   "Some," Samuel said, "Memory charms, and stuff like that. This is illusion pure and simple."

   "Why can't I see it? I'm a wizard," James asked.

   "That is a very good question indeed, we'll have to ask about that when we get to Hogwarts," Samuel replied.

   "What do we do then?" asked James.

   "Well I would suggest we sit at that little diner across the street," Samuel said, "Instead of standing here like idiots looking at the space between the shops."

   With that Samuel started across the street with James close behind him. The two walked into the diner and ordered two sodas and sat down at an outside table, watching the shops closely.

   "What are we looking for?" asked James.

   "Basically, anyone disappearing," Samuel said, "Sometimes that breaks the disbelief."

   What seemed like a long time passed before Samuel spotted an elderly woman walking down the street. She was hunched over slightly and carrying a rather large leather handbag, the sort some people carried small pets in. 

   "Witch at two o'clock," Samuel said, nodding to the old woman.

   "How can you tell?" James asked.

   "She's a tad uncomfortable, her clothes are a bit out of date too," Samuel said.

   "So?"

   "Her hat is on backwards, and there's a toad in her handbag," Samuel said, "Not likely she's a muggle woman at all."

   The two watched with interest as she approached the book shop and then started to disappear. A rather shabby looking building appeared between the book and record shop, though it seemed like it had always been there and nothing around it had moved.

   "And there we go," Samuel said as he dropped a few coins on the table and started across the street. James ran after him and they both entered the tiny pub. It was filled nearly to capacity with witches and wizards, which wasn't saying much as Samuel guessed there were only about twenty people in the pub. The patrons turned their heads to look at the new arrivals and one or two began to draw their wands.

   "Muggles," one of the wizards said, pointing his wand at Samuel.

   "It's alright Burt," a middle aged man at one of the tables said loudly, "That's Samuel Green and his brother James." The man lowered his wand, as did the rest, but everyone eyed the two suspiciously.

   "Mr. Longfellow!" Samuel said, shaking his defender's hand, "How are you?"

   "Quite well, can I buy you two fellows a drink?" Longfellow asked.

   "I'm fine, James?" Samuel said, turning to James.

   "Butterbeer," James said.

   "Tom! One Butterbeer!"

   The bartender quickly brought out a filled mug and set it on the table. Longfellow flipped him a coin. "So I see they convinced you to return eh?"

   "Yep, I'm back to teach muggle studies, and resuming my role as the most unqualified councilor at Hogwarts," Samuel replied.

   "I'm just here to learn to change animals into drinking glasses, and water into rum," James said.

   "Two very important skills to be sure," Longfellow said with a laugh. 

   "That reminds me," Samuel said producing a folded sheet of paper from his pocket, "He was fairly ill equipped last year. All he had was a wand I made him and some left over books for his classes. Now we have this list of things he'll need, are there any additions you know of?"

   Longfellow looked over the list carefully and nodded. "This is all standard first year equipment, and it looks like some third or fourth year books and two fifth year books. It looks like they're going to be moving him right along" he said. "Personally I would pick up a book of basic charms and spells to supplement all this. I recommend _Adalbert's__ Grimoire myself, since it explains the theory behind the magic and will give you a lot of useful spells to learn. Also grab a copy of __Goshawk's Utilitarian Magic. It's a somewhat thick book used mostly by housewives and such, but it has a lot of stuff in it to make his life easier."_

   "How will they help?" asked James.

   "Well, it appears they're trying to get you through a basic course quickly so you can be at the same level as other students your age. I'd say you'd be a sixth year this year?" Longfellow asked.

   "I think so, I'm sixteen," James replied.

   "About sixth year then. My reasoning for those books is that it's probably more important to increase your repertoire of spells right now, instead of trying to learn some of the finer points of magic. In other words it's like having a rather large vocabulary and knowing how and when to use those words, rather then having a small vocabulary and knowing where the words come from and knowing their meaning, but not being able to use them well," Longfellow said.

   "So I should learn as many spells as I can?" asked James.

   "In my opinion, yes," Longfellow said, "Those two books have a wealth of useful information in them you won't find in the schoolbooks. I picked a copy of them up when I was at Hogwarts and had a much easier time at it. Of course that was many years and three editions ago."

   James finished off his butterbeer and nodded to Samuel. "Well it was good seeing you again Professor," Samuel said, shaking Longfellow's hand, "We must be going though, we have some shopping to do."

   The two brothers went out the back door and found themselves in a small yard with a high brick wall. James took a note from his pocket and looked the wall over carefully. He reached out and tapped one of the bricks and a small passage opened in the wall. They passed through and found themselves staring down a long street filled with shops of all kinds.

   "Did you bring the gold Elanus gave you?" asked Samuel.

   "Sure did, twenty galleons I believe," James replied, "He paid for all the books already so we'll just need to buy equipment."

   "Right, well if you don't have enough I've got some at Gringott's," Samuel said.

   "Won't need the wand, you've already taken care of that. I need a cauldron set, brass scales and some vials. I would imagine a set of those modified Omniculars would suffice for the telescope set," James said.

   "I'd say we best get to Flourish and Blotts first, this late in the year it shouldn't be too crowded," Samuel said, walking off in a seemingly random direction. James hurried after his brother and looked around in amazement at all the shops lining the street. They entered the bookstore and were immediately greeted by a cheerful clerk.

   "How may I help you?" asked the clerk.

   "We're here to pick up an order for Elanus Green, and we need a few other books as well," Samuel said.

   "Green you say?" the clerk asked as he went behind a large counter and produced a large bundle of books, "Interesting selection for a student I'd say, did you know we ran out of the new Muggle Studies books right after he placed his order. You're lucky to get one."

   "Wonder why he paid for a book you wrote?" asked James under his breath.

   Samuel shrugged and looked the pile over, "It seems to all be here. We need a copy of _Goshawk's Utilitarian Magic and _Adalbert's___ Grimoire as well."_

   "Certainly," the clerk said as he scuttled about the shop pulling an oversized but thin book from the shelves and a thick but average sized book as well. "Wise choices sir, few people would think to get these books while in school."

   "What about this one?" asked James as he held up a dark leather bound book.

   "_Curses and Countercurses? I don't know," Samuel said._

   "Hey I can either learn these here or from Harry, your choice," James said with a grin.

   "Why not, you need to defend yourself," Samuel said.

   "What else can I get for you two?" asked the clerk.

   "I think that'll be it, what do I owe you?" asked Samuel.  
  


   "Two galleons," the clerk replied.

   James placed two gold coins on the table, which the clerk quickly placed in a safe box. He kindly bagged their purchase and they went on their way down the street. They found the proper shops for the rest of the equipment and even stopped by the Apothecary for some basic, and not so basic potion ingredients. As they walked down the street they both stopped dead in their tracks, staring at a shop across the street from them.

   "I don't believe it," Samuel said.

   "We must, we just have to go in. It's the principle of the matter," James said, nearly dropping his books.

   "I agree my good man," Samuel said in a mock cockney accent.

   The two walked across the street and reverently entered the building. They looked around as if awestruck by the splendor of the aisles of merchandise. 

   "Samuel! James!" a familiar voice called from the back of the shop, "What can I do for you?"

   "Don't come any closer Fred, we need to gawk a few moments longer," Samuel said as his eyes looked the shop over. Two identical red headed young men dressed in fine but overly colorful clothing approached the front of the shop.

   "Welcome to our little niche in the world," George said.

   "You've done a good thing here," Samuel said.

   "Well, are you two looking for something in particular?" asked Fred.

   "Why don't we just start somewhere and you can give us the tour," James said.

   The twins grinned widely, "We'll even show you the back room," they said.

   The joke shop was the most fantastic thing they'd seen so far. Fred and George had everything from standard issue dungbombs and the like to devices used for spying. There were fireworks and even books on how to make many joke items yourself. The twins gave the two brothers the grand tour and provided them with many free samples. Finally they ended up in a spacious back room lined with shelves of every kind of magical novelty one could imagine.

   "We shouldn't be letting you back here, or even in this shop at all Professor," Fred said, "But since you're one of our biggest customers we thought it would be ok."

   "All I ask is that you keep me supplied and tell me how to remedy jokes played on me," Samuel said, looking around the back room.

   "Of course, of course," George said, as he retrieved a few items from a shelf. "Now as you know we produce mostly joke items and the like. We're thinking of branching off a little with stuff like this," he continued, handing Samuel what looked like a large book bag.

   "This looks like a wizard's bag," Samuel said, examining the bag.

   "Ah, yes, but this bag has three compartments and a secret compartment that keeps things cold or hot," George said, demonstrating how to pull flaps back to access each compartment. "You pick a password when you buy it and only you can access the secret compartment."

   "We also have a version that looks much like a muggle backpack we saw and a briefcase as well," Fred said, presenting one to James.

   "These are incredible," James said, sticking his whole arm into the backpack.

   "Would you two do us a favor?" asked George.

   "What's that?" asked Samuel.

   "A bit of advertising. If everyone saw Hogwarts most popular professor and his brother carrying one of our bags," Fred replied, "Then everyone there would want one."

   "I don't know," James said, "What kind of compensation would we get?"

   "Five percent," George said.

   "Two percent, and you owl us a package on a weekly basis full of things we might find useful and stuff we can sell," Samuel said.

   "Done, we get ninety percent of the profit from what you sell," George said with a grin.

   "We have some other things we'd like to show you," Fred said, "Wouldn't hurt for you to use these at school either." 

   "Here's an improvement on the self writing quill," George said, "It can write in six different languages perfectly and copy anyone's handwriting. We've even taken the liberty to put several professors' handwriting already in them. All you have to do is brush the feather over the handwriting you want to copy and start dictating. It will even remember the handwriting. We only sell these to a very exclusive group of people."

   "Interesting," Samuel said as he turned the quill in his fingers, "Is there anyway to tell when one of these has been used?"

   The twins looked at each other and grinned, "Not that we'll tell."

   "Good," Samuel said, "What else have you got?"

   "Plenty," Fred commented, "Vanishing Parchment for note passing, Color Changing Ink, and what should be a big seller with the girls; an Impervious Diary."

   "There are a lot of magic diaries," James said, "I got a catalog, what makes yours so special?"

   "Features," George said with a grin, "You can dictate to it, or write in it. The ink disappears after it's written so no one can see it. It takes a key, and a password to make it reveal its contents. The best feature is, if someone other then you tries to make it reveal stuff it will reveal the most boring, hard to read entries imaginable."

   "We borrowed some of Professor Binn's lectures," Fred commented, "The best part is that when it reveals those entries it puts a sleeping charm on the reader and anyone nearby who's looking or listening to the diary. After the reader is asleep it returns to its owner. All you have to do to recharge the sleeping part is put a few drops of a Sleeping Draught on the pages. A bottle of the Draught comes with the diary."

   "Very nice," James said as he looked at the diary.

   "We have a more masculine journal for boys," George said, handing James a dark leather bound book, "Works for a spell book too," he said with a wink.

   "How does it put people to sleep?" asked Samuel.

   "It emits a gas," Fred said, "We're very proud of that feature."

   Fred and George showed Samuel and James their products for the next hour or so, loading them up with things to use at Hogwarts for advertising purposes. When it was all said and done they walked out with two wizard's bags full of stuff. They had even supplied them with two sacks full of things to give away to the students. The rest of the day was largely uneventful by comparison.

   The last remaining days of August passed quickly though they definitely weren't boring with all the stuff the Weasley twins had given them. The first day of September arrived and the two brothers, and Maria found themselves looking up at King's Cross Station.

  



	5. The Hogwart's Express and Old Aquaintanc...

Chapter 5: The Hogwarts Express and Old Acquaintances

**Author's Note: **_I'm_Sorry for the extremely infrequent updates. It's been a rough several weeks for me. I'll try to update more often and make the chapters shorter. Thanks for the patience! This chapter is probably a bit below par but bare with me.__

   The station was bustling with people departing for work, school and parts unknown. As they approached platform nine Maria eyed her surroundings very suspiciously.

   "What's wrong?" asked James

   "Where's our platform?" she asked.

   Samuel rubbed his temples and looked around with squinted eyes, "It's in between platform nine and ten," he said.

   "Are you alright?" Maria asked.

   "It's just the blasted memory charm they have on this place," Samuel replied, "I'm fine now." Maria frowned and walked around the column dividing the platforms. James shrugged and stared at the wall. He reached slowly to the wall to touch it.

   "Oh for goodness sake," Samuel said as he walked right through the wall and on to platform nine and three quarters. James followed quickly after. Maria stood staring at the wall and reached out to touch it, then yelped when her husband's hand grabbed hers and pulled her through.

   "Ow! You didn't have to do that," Maria said, rubbing her wrist.

   "I'm sorry," Samuel said.

   "Why are you so irritable?" she asked.

   "Memory charm gave me a headache," Samuel said, "seems like they jacked it up a few notches since last year."

   "Is that why dad couldn't go with us?" asked James.

   "Elanus was afraid he'd ruin the enchantments," Samuel replied, "He's going to Apparate him to Hogsmeade."

   "It's a wonder he can do that," Maria said.

   "Dad can turn it off, so to speak," Samuel said, "He can't control it when he touches stuff though. It wouldn't be good for him to get his hand caught in the wall."

   "Much less keep every student in Hogwarts from getting to school," James said.

   "Shall we board?" asked Samuel, "We are early."

   Maria and James nodded and helped an attendant pack their luggage. Maria thought the train to be quaint but comfortable. She had a sense of nostalgia as she looked into the glass doors of the compartments and saw what few students had already boarded the train. A few of them she knew, and almost all their faces she recognized with the exception of some of the younger students. The book bag Samuel had given her slipped down off her left shoulder a bit as she walked between two of the cars. It was hard to keep from playing with it as she'd never seen anything like it before. There were at least twenty pounds of books in it and it barely weighed a few ounces! Samuel led them into a compartment and placed his guitar case and his own book bag on a shelf over the benches. Maria and James did the same with their carry on luggage and sat down. 

   She sat across from her husband, staring at him. They'd been married and she loved him dearly. She felt a twinge of guilt when she thought about how he was several years younger then her, but it passed quickly. Their wedding was small and almost no one attended. It was sort of a spur of the moment decision after what had happened the year prior. They had declared their love for each other and since they both lived in the same house, marriage seemed like the best way to keep out of trouble. Their families had been approving and very supportive. Some of the people at their church had looked at them strange but they had always done that. How could they know what had happened to them?

   Smiling, she remembered how her mother had shaken her head when she told her the news. Samuel was not a very handsome man, in fact he wasn't even as impressive to look at as his brother and father. Her mother always expected her daughter to marry a very good looking man and she'd opted for plain. Samuel was very good to her and everything she looked for in a man. Still it was a bit strange to be sleeping with the man who had been like her little brother for so many years. God works in mysterious ways, she thought. 

   A sharp knock was heard on the glass door and she turned her head to see a familiar looking girl with a head full of bushy brown hair standing outside it.

   "Hermione!" come in, Samuel said as he stood up and opened the door for the young woman. She'd certainly grown up, Maria could tell, though she doubted anyone else would. The shapeless black Hogwarts robes did a good job at concealing the figures of their wearers. 

   "How are you? I'm glad to see you three are back!" Hermione said, nearly squealing with excitement.

   "We're great," Samuel said as he placed her book bag on the shelf, "Please, sit down."

   Hermione sat down next to Maria and smiled. "So is Mr. Gene coming back?" she asked hopefully, "I heard he might be teaching a new class."

   "Yes, dad is coming, he'll be traveling a different route though," Samuel said.

   "I saw your book at the bookstore," Hermione said, "A wizard's book and everything. I can't believe they published you so quickly. Read it cover to cover over the summer, it's very good."

   "Thank you!" Samuel said, "I know, last year we had to get a favor from an American printer to get enough for the class. They said that a lot more were ordered this year, and they're even translating it into French for Beauxbatons."

   "That's wonderful," Hermione said, "Maria are you teaching the fencing class this year?"

   "Sure am, are you looking to sign up?" asked Maria.

   "I think so, father said I should sign up for something less academic and more physical this year," Hermione said, "I'm thinking about taking Gene's class too."

   "It'll be good for you," Maria said, "Need more girls in the class. I'm sure Gene will too."

   "He's teaching metal working," James said with a chuckle.

   "I think I can do that," Hermione said.

   "Where are the others that are always following you around?" asked Samuel.

   "Ron, Ginny and Harry are on their way I think," Hermione said, "They said they might be a little late."

   "Any word on who the Gryffindor Prefects are this year?" asked James.

   "And give you advance warning?" Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow.

   "Well, who are they?" asked James.

   "Ginny Weasley and Colin Creavey," Hermione muttered.

   "Ohhh!" Hermione exclaimed, seeing the gold ring on Maria's finger, "Congratulations to you two! When did you get married?"

   "July 17th," Samuel answered.

   "I'm very happy for you!" Hermione said.

   Just about that time another knock on the door was heard. Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley and her brother Ron were standing outside, waiting to be let in. James opened the compartment door for them and helped them stow their belongings. Ron and Harry looked at each other with large stupid grins on their faces as they sat down.

   "How's it going, guys?" asked Samuel.

   "Great! This is going to be the best year of school ever," Ron said.

   "Why's that?" asked Maria.

   "No Voldemort to worry about, and the best professors we've ever had are back," Harry said, "I'm also a bit excited about starting some of my first Auror classes."

   "I think you'd make a good one," Samuel said, "So who all is taking my class this year?"

   "I certainly am," Hermione said, "though I do have my reservations about the perspective you're teaching it from."

   "I am," Harry said, "I need an easy class."

   "Ginny and I are, we'll be sharing a book though," Ron said, "Different hours thankfully."

   "Well it won't be as easy as you think," Samuel said, looking at Harry, "Though I doubt you'll find it very difficult to pass."

   "What are some of the class projects?" asked Hermione.

   "Well the newcomers will help rewire the telegraph we built last year. We might string one up to another part of the castle though, I haven't decided yet. Others will get to build a simple radio receiver. We'll be doing a good bit of basic electronic, and mechanical theory as that seems to be what confounds wizards the most," Samuel said, "You'll also learn some simple shielding spells that Flitwick developed to allow muggle devices to operate in Hogwarts for a limited amount of time."

   "That sounds great!" Ron said excitedly. Hermione fidgeted and nodded. 

   "Well enough about class, the horrors will start soon enough, how were your respective summers?" asked Samuel.

   "Mine was great," Harry said, "for the first time in my life. The Dursleys were actually somewhat nice to me.  That might have had something to do with me being away from the house so much though."

   "Where did you go?" asked Maria.

   "Here and there, and I got a summer job loading delivery trucks," Harry said.

   "Mine was alright," Ron said, "Not a lot to do about the Burrow though."

   "There would have been if you didn't stare at Quidditch magazines all day," Ginny said, eyeing her brother with a look of disapproval.

   "Well I for one had a wonderful summer," Hermione said, "My family and I went to Spain for a few weeks. I had an absolutely wonderful time in Barcelona."

   "Do you think we'll be able to have Quidditch this year?" asked Ron.

   "I don't see why not," Samuel replied.

   "I can't wait," Harry said, "We haven't played Quidditch much in two years."


	6. The Feast, And The Councilor

Chapter 6: The Feast, and The Councilor

**Author's Note: **_Things should move a little quicker after this point. Rather short chapter._

 The group talked about Quidditch and their hopes for the new school year for quite some time. Soon the train pulled into the station and everyone began unloading. A large man in a moleskin coat was directing the first years to several wooden boats docked at a small lake. All the other students made their way up to the school either by carriage or walking. Samuel boarded a carriage after helping his wife and the students into it. It was roomy and comfortable, but not overly so. The carriage made its way up to the school, drawn by a team of skeletal horses that, surprisingly, everyone could see. Once the carriage arrived at the castle its occupants got out and stared at the complex.

   "Still repairing damage I see," Samuel said, pointing out several cracks in one wall.

   "I heard they're going to leave some of the cracks, as a reminder," Hermione said, looking up at a tower with a large crack running up it's length.

   "Come on, we better get inside," Samuel said, making his way to the main gates.

   They all followed and eventually found themselves in the Great Hall. Samuel shook hands with the rest of the professors and then a good number of the students. The Gryffindor table began to fill up quickly as students caught up on each other's news. Samuel took his seat at the Professor's table and leaned back in his chair a bit.

   "Have a good summer Professor Snape?" Samuel asked of a severe looking man sitting next to him.

   "Dismal," Snape said, "Could have been worse though I imagine. I spent the entire three months testifying in court. One Death Eater right after another."

   "I see you kept the tattoo," Samuel said, noting a tattoo on Severus' arm.

   "So those around me will never forget," Snape said, "The ones that were pardoned had their marks removed."

   "How many were let go?" asked Samuel.

   "Two, Crabbe, and Goyle's fathers. They were just too dumb to know any better."

   "A lot of orphans then I would imagine."

   "Yes, luckily most of them were able to live with relatives. Many weren't that fortunate," Snape said, "They put them in orphanages."

   "What about Malfoy?"

   "The little prat seized his family's assets," Snape said with a chuckle, "A true Slythern if I ever saw one."

   "How in the world did he manage that?"

   "Who knows?"

   Most of the students had already entered the great hall when Headmaster Dumbledore came in and sat down at his seat at the head of the professor's table. Soon Professor McGonagall led in the nervous looking first year students and placed an old hat on a stool. The hat sang a song about the school, unsurprisingly and the Sorting Ceremony commenced. As was normal about equal portions of the nervous first years were distributed among all the houses with Hufflepuff having the most and Ravenclaw having the least. There were cheers and backslapping aplenty at all the tables. Dumbledore stood and tapped a spoon on his wine glass.

   "Attention, everyone," he said and the room fell silent. "Before the feast begins I would like to make a few start-of-the-year announcements. First of all, since the opening of the Weasley's Joke Shop, Mr. Filch has tripled the number of items on his list of banned items. He asks that you hand over all items in your possession to avoid disciplinary actions."

   "The Dark Forest is strictly forbidden to all students. The village of Hogsmeade is restricted to students third year and above," the Headmaster stated, "Your school councilor is Professor Samuel Green. If you are having problems of any kind please don't hesitate to see him or set up an appointment. I would also like to welcome Professors Severus Snape and Remus Lupin back to the school. They will resume their posts as Potion Master and Defense Against The Dark Arts Teacher respectively. Also Master Gene Evans will be teaching a new class on working with metals. I would encourage all of you to consider taking his class. Maria Evans will be teaching the new Wizard Fencing this year as well."

   "Now that the announcements are over, enjoy the feast!" he said cheerfully, and waved his hands. Platters, bowls and pitchers of food and drink appeared on the tables in front of the eager students.

   "Congratulations on your marriage," Snape said, shaking Samuel's hand, "You are a lucky man."

   "Thank you," Samuel replied, "Yes I am."

   Minerva McGonagall leaned forward and smiled at Samuel in approval and raised her glass slightly. Samuel nodded in return and raised his own glass. Snape looked at the two for a moment and then sat back in his chair. The beginning of the year feast continued for an hour, possibly two before the prefects led the first years to the dormitories. Many of the older students congregated in the halls. Samuel found his old office and along with his wife, began to put things in order and added a few decorations they had brought from him. 

   "Samuel," Maria said, digging through his desk drawer.

   "Yes?"

   "I think I need a pet," she said.

   "Why's that?"

   "Almost all the students here have one and I feel kind of left out," she said, still rummaging through the drawer.

   "What kind do you want?" he asked, "I'm sure we can get Elanus to bring you one."

   "I was thinking of a toad, or maybe one of those big green lizards that live in Palo Duro Canyon," she said.

   "Why a toad? Wouldn't you rather have a cat or an owl?" he asked.

   "Well I wanted to steal your little glass mouse but, almost no one here has a toad," Maria said, "Can you get Elanus to bring me one? They make good weather forecasters I hear."

   "Sure why not? Do you want a toad or a lizard?"

   "A lizard, and a big one," Maria said, throwing things out of the drawer.

   "What are you looking for?" Samuel asked, hanging a portrait of Maria and him on the wall.

   "Your mouse," Maria said, "I want to play with it."

   "Here you go," Samuel said as he produced a clear glass marble from his pocket. The marble slowly changed into a transparent mouse in Samuel's hand and scampered towards Maria. She picked it up and let it crawl over her hands and arms, giggling under her breath all the while.

   "Did you hear we're getting private quarters?" Samuel asked, "Since I'm a full fledged professor now."

   "That's great!" Maria said, "I was hoping we would, are they big?"

   "Well, I saw Moody's last year. They're fairly sizable. Flitwick told me that they spent all last week fixing it up for us. He said we were one of the few married couples here. Most have to use adjoining rooms."

   "I guess it's good to be married to a hero, hmm?" asked Maria.

   "I didn't know dad got married," Samuel said, rubbing his chin.

   "You know what I mean, come on, let's go see this room," Maria said, holding her hand out.

   Samuel extended his elbow and led his wife down the halls to their living quarters for the following months. They were taken aback by the size of the rooms. It appeared as if it were originally two rooms. One room, where they entered had been made much like a living and dining room. They could entertain several guests and dine in privacy in the morning if they so desired. The other room was of course a large bed room with its own private bathing facilities. A large canopied bed occupied the center of the room and a large walk in closet dominated one wall. 

   "Oh Samuel!" Maria said, "I'll feel like a queen."

   "It is a castle," Samuel said, looking around the room, "They went to a lot of work for us." Maria nodded and walked back into the living room.

   "We'll have to do something about that bed," she said suggestively, "What's this?" asked Maria, looking at a door in the living room, "I can't open it."

   Samuel shrugged and turned the doorknob easily. Inside was what looked to be a study of some kind, complete with a large desk, a round table with chairs, several bookshelves full of books, and what appeared to be a small bar. "I don't know, what do you make of it?"

   "It's your councilor's office," Maria said, "Probably why I can't open it."

   "Why would they put it here, I like my other office," Samuel said.

   A knock on the door was heard and Maria quickly opened the door. "Professor Dumbledore! Please come in," Maria said, showing the old wizard in.

   "It's good to see you again Mrs. Evans," Dumbledore said, "I see your husband has found his new office."

   "I don't understand, sir. Why do I need another office?" asked Samuel.

   "It's quite simple," Dumbledore said, "This one is private, and secure. No one may enter unless they have your permission. We thought many students would be more comfortable in a relaxed setting, rather then in your regular office."

   "So you're going to encourage them to come here then?" asked Samuel.

   "With your permission, of course," Dumbledore said.

   "It's fine with me, company is always welcome," Maria said with a shrug.

   Samuel shrugged and looked at his wife for a moment, "I don't have a problem with it, I can work with them after school hours I suppose."

   Dumbledore nodded, "I expect the rest of the quarters is to your satisfaction?"

   Samuel and Maria both nodded and expressed their gratitude. Dumbledore informed them that a house elf would be put in charge of attending to their quarters, and if they needed anything at all, they only needed to ask. Soon the old wizard left and the couple decided to go to bed early that night. 

  



	7. The First Day of School

**Chapter 7: The First Day of School**

**Author's Note: **_I'm trying to turn these out quicker but lucky for me I've had a lot of work to do lately. I should get at least a few chapters done over the holidays. I want to make these chapters longer and show things from more then one character's point of view. I'll see how that goes, so the chapters my take longer to post, but it'll be like reading three or four at once._

**Author's Note II: **_Due to strange occurrences with Fan Fiction.net it appears some of the chapters I uploaded have gone missing. I'd apologize, but it isn't my fault._

   Maria rubbed her eyes as she woke up to the gentle ringing of an alarm clock by the bed. As usual Samuel had waked up before her, leaving an empty spot in the bed. She walked into the living room of their quarters and found her husband sitting, fully dressed, at a small table eating a muffin and writing in a ledger book. Samuel caught her out of the corner of his eye and stood up.

   "Good morning," he said, kissing her.

   "Morning," she said sleepily, "What's all this?" she asked, gesturing at the food on the table.

   "Our two house elves brought it in earlier," he replied, as she sat down, "They seem to think we're royalty or something. 

   "Our house elves?" she asked.

   "Apparently two house elves have been bonded to our family," Samuel said, "I find it a bit disturbing myself."

   "These are good muffins," Maria said, "So what's in the book?"

   "Class schedules," Samuel replied, "It looks like have a full morning three days a week, and then counseling on Thursday and Friday. They did a lot of preparation for me already."

   "So what do you do today?" she asked.

   "The younger students will get their classes assigned, and the older ones will pick them. Once that's done, the orientation classes begin and it's pretty much that way all week until everyone gets settled. Muggle Studies isn't exactly a required course for everyone. I think third year students are required to take it one semester though."

   "How many do you expect?" Maria asked.

   "Quite a few have told me they'd be taking it," he said, "I figure I'll have a good three classes a day at least."

   "When do I get my list?"

   "I think, let me check," Samuel said, flipping through a small handbook, "Since you teach an elective, that will be delivered to you after everyone signs up today."

   "So I have all day to wander the castle?" 

   "Of course not, you'll be taking some basic wizard classes in the morning, and learning to fly with the little Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw first years," Samuel said with a grin. 

   "Fly on what?" she asked.

   "The elves delivered your broom and school gear as well," he said pointing to a small stack of boxes on a sofa. "Elanus is bringing your broom, lizard and a few helpful books with Dad this afternoon."

  Maria nodded and finished her muffin before reluctantly going through her school supplies. She found her schedule and then dressed herself. Samuel poked his head in the bedroom door and informed her he was leaving to help students get their classes. His wife kissed him goodbye and he started down the halls of the castle. Several students had already finished their breakfast and many grudgingly went about signing up for their classes.

   "Samuel!" Professor McGonagall called from a long table with several lines of students in front of it. He acknowledged her and came around behind the table. "I need some help," she said, indicating the students, "They need help with their schedules."

   "Well I can try, but I may not be the best suited for that," Samuel said, sitting down at the table. "Nonsense," McGonagall said, "They're first and second years, just hand them a card, then they'll sign up for extra classes. This sheet right here will tell you if there is any room. The list of extra classes they can sign up for is on the card," she said, indicating a stack of cards and a scroll lying on the table with a list of classes and how many currently in the class printed on it.

   Samuel nodded and picked up a card and grinned at the next student in the line in front of him. "Here you go," he said, handing the student his card. "What can I sign you up for?"

   "What can I sign up for?" the boy asked nervously. Samuel looked at his card, which had filled itself out already and noted a list at the top of the card.

   "It looks like, fencing, metal working, and it looks like we have a dueling club here too," Samuel said, "Is this right Minerva? Dueling club for a first year?"

   "Yes, they start after the Christmas Holidays," McGonagall replied.

   "Do I have to sign up for either?" asked the boy.

   "Doesn't look like it; I'd recommend taking the metal working class though," Samuel said, "My father is an excellent teacher."

   "Is that going to be making stuff with metal?"

   "Yes," Samuel replied.

   "I'll do that," the boy said, handing his card to Samuel. Samuel picked up a quill and wrote the class down on the card. The number on the scroll by "Basic Metal Working" went down by one. Samuel handed the card back to the boy and said "Next".

   A bit over half an hour passed before the last student was taken care of. The tables were put away and the professors made their way to their respective classes. Samuel made his way down the winding corridors, passing several students along his way until he arrived at his familiar classroom. He'd managed to make it before any students arrived. Soon they began filing in. Most were older students, a few who'd taken his course the year prior. It was one of the few classes that allowed for different year students in the same class at the same time. Once all the students had arrived Samuel stood up to make his first of class announcements.

   "Good morning," Samuel said, "I'm Professor Samuel Green. You may call me Professor Samuel or Professor Green, whichever you prefer. This is Muggle Studies, so if any of you are in the wrong place, now is the time to say so, and we'll get you to the right class. More specifically this is what I like to call Advanced Muggle studies. If you didn't take my class last year, don't worry it's not that advanced. Is anyone not supposed to be here?"

   Many of the students double checked their schedules and none left. "Good, has everyone got a copy of _Muggle Studies the Muggle Way_? If you don't, they're all sold out at Flourish and Blotts but I do have copies of the compiled notes we used last year. They aren't wizard books, but they will work. They're two sickles each if you want one, come talk to me about loaning you one if you don't have the money," he said. 

  "Alright, let's get started. I'm going to go over a few class rules and review a few basics for those who were not here last year. First and foremost there will be little to no magic used in this class. Enchanted items and such are allowed for note taking and other similar purposes. If you have self writing quills or a magic abacus you may use them here. If you have muggle devices they will function properly in this room, even if they do not in the rest of the castle," he said.

   "The basic premise for this class is that muggles and wizards are only different in one key area. Wizards can use magic and muggles can not. For those of you new to this class, we'll be studying various forms of muggle technology and comparing them to magic. For example, let's talk about communication. How would a wizard here communicate with a wizard in London?" Samuel asked.

   "He'd send an owl, sir," one student said.

   "Right, now how long would it take the owl or similar bird to fly from here to London?" Samuel asked.

   "An hour, maybe two," came a reply.

   "Not bad for a written letter, how about if he wanted to send a letter to New York?" Samuel asked.

   "It would take days, or weeks," another student replied.

   "Alright, now how would a muggle do it?" Samuel asked.

   "Send a letter or communicate?" asked a student in the front.

   "Start with letters," Samuel replied.

   "Well there's sending it by post," another student replied.

   "How long would it take to send a letter to London from here?"

   "A day or so," the student replied.

   "Right, now how about to New York?"

   "Depends on how much you want to pay," came a reply.

   "How fast is the fastest?" asked Samuel.

   "Over night generally," the student said, "Or instantly if you used e-mail."

   "Good, does anyone know how that is accomplished?" Samuel asked.

   "Airplanes," a student said.

   "Right, now what about e-mail, how many wizard-born in here have heard of it?" asked Samuel.  

  The students looked at each other and shrugged. Samuel waited patiently for someone in the class to respond. When no one did, Samuel sat down on the edge of his desk and smiled. "E-mail, is a form of electronic communication handled by computers," Samuel said, "You can send messages, pictures and even voice to other people more or less instantly with it. We'll be constructing a sort of magical e-mail system for the school this year. My cousin Elanus will be helping us," Samuel said.

   "I thought you said that we wouldn't be using magic in here?" one of the students asked.

   "I said very little," Samuel replied, "You will be learning some new sorts of charms in this class."

   "How are we supposed to learn if you can't use magic?" asked another student.

   "Good point," Samuel said, "Professor Flitwick has generously given us a few simple charms to work with. A few transfiguration spells are included as well. They're all in your book and he has assured me they are all well below the second year level. If you are a first year, you'll likely have some minor difficulties. Most twelve and thirteen year old muggles possess the skills necessary to do practically everything we're going to be doing in this class without magic, however. Anyway, I think that's all that we need to go over today, please read the first several chapters of the book as quickly as you can."

   The students packed their things up and slowly exited the class. Samuel sat back in his chair and looked over the roster for his next class. Two more classes entered and exited his classroom over the next few hours. After the final class had departed for lunch Samuel placed his books in the wizard bag that the Weasley's had given him. He was just about to leave his classroom as a few students walked nervously into his classroom.

   "Can I help you?" Samuel asked.

   "Yes, we need the notes," one of the students said.

   "Alright," Samuel said, producing four small paper bound books from his desk, "Two sickles each."

   "I need a loaner," one of the students said.

   "That's fine, what's your name and year?" Samuel asked.

   "Joseph Nelson," the boy said, "Third year."

   Samuel wrote the name down on a small list in his desk drawer along with a number from inside one of the book's cover and handed the book to the boy. "Anyone else need a loaned book?" The other three shook their heads and handed Samuel two sickles each. "Take these books to Professor Flitwick the very next chance you get and he'll give you the list of spells you'll need to know," Samuel said "I'll need that book back, or two sickles by the end of the year, Mr. Nelson." The students thanked him and left. 

   Samuel sat back in his chair and looked out the window. He had a pretty decent view of the school ground from this classroom. There were several students outside with Hagrid, who was teaching them how to care for magical animals. The half-giant had a strange way of showing the children how to care for magical beasts. He was apt to bring in dangerous if not downright lethal animals to show the children. Many of the students and almost as many of their parents disapproved, but Hagrid was excellent at showing them how to care for animals properly. If nothing else, they learned how to deal with dangerous animals if they should ever encounter one. To his benefit though, he had softened his method a bit in the last year or two, and had been showing them how to care for animals that carried a bit less risk with their presence. 

   It had been a long time since Samuel had owned a pet. His last pet, a large orange tom cat, had run out of the house and hadn't come back. He'd been too busy training with the Slayers and finishing his schooling in London to bother with a new one. Perhaps he'd ask Hagrid about a good pet some time during the next few days.

~*~

   Far on the other side of the castle and down on the Quiditch grounds Madam Hooch was about to begin the year's first flying lessons for the first years. Maria looked around nervously as she stood amidst the eleven year olds as they chattered anxiously among themselves. Several school broomsticks were stacked neatly on a rack sitting in the middle of the field. Madam Hooch, a hawk-eyed woman with short gray hair, walked out on the field and blew her whistle.

   "Alright, everyone get a broom, line up in two parallel lines, and lay it down beside you!" she ordered, all the students and Maria scrambled to get a broom. Maria picked one with the neatest looking bristles and a stick that felt most like the handle of her rapiers. They all lined up in two lines facing each other and placed their brooms carefully beside themselves. Madam Hooch walked down the middle of them and prodded a few students instructing them to place their brooms on the other side. When she got to Maria she snorted and passed by her with little more then a glance. 

   "Place your hand over your broom and say UP!" the professor barked.

   The students did as they were instructed; two or three brooms flew into the hands of the students immediately. After four or five tries, Maria managed to get her broom to lurch up no more then half a foot. Maria muttered a few unintelligible curses at the broom and shook her head.

   "Up!" she said forcefully, though nothing happened. She looked around to see most of the students had their brooms in hand, but not all. Taking some small relief in the fact that she wasn't the only one having trouble she commanded to broom again. This time it flew into her hand hard, nearly knocking her over. She looked around and saw one small boy still having a bit of difficulty with his broom. "You can do it!" she called to the boy. The boy looked startled, then blushed and cried "UP!" The broom flew into his hands immediately. He grinned proudly, holding on to the straining broom in his hand so tight his knuckles turned white.

   Maria smiled at him, and then returned her attention to Madam Hooch, who narrowed her eyes at Maria and shook her head. "Alright, mount your brooms, push off from the ground a bit, hover a moment then touch back down," Hooch barked. The students did as they were told, a few actually having flown before. Maria swung her right leg over the broom and pushed off slightly with her left foot. The broom responded remarkably well and she found herself hovering several inches off the ground. There was the problem of getting back down. If there was one thing she learned living in the Evans household it was how to learn by watching other people.

   There is always someone, somewhere that knows how to do what you're trying to do. You don't always have to ask, if you've got a keen eye. So she turned her head and watched the other students. An auburn haired girl at the end of the line leaned forward on her broom and pushed the nose slightly to the ground. The broom lowered and the girl touched down. Maria followed her example and leaned forward then pushed down on her broom. The tip of the broom didn't lower so she pushed down harder. She looked around again to see if she'd missed something. All the other students did basically the same thing and managed to lower themselves down. Maria tried again and pushed down as hard as she could. Suddenly all Maria could see was a vast expanse of blue and a dirt clod had somehow attached itself to the end of her broomstick. Once the disorienting feeling wore off, she realized she'd somehow flipped completely over. She could just hear Madam Hooch muttering. Fortunately for her Madam Hooch was distracted with a scared girl who'd panicked and was clinging to her broom for dear life.

   Maria decided to take the graceful course of action and let go of the broom with her legs, easily swinging to the ground. As soon as she let go of the broom it started to fall to the ground. She caught it quickly before it hit the ground and looked around to see if anyone had noticed. A few of the more successful students were giggling at her rather obviously. Undaunted, Maria swung her leg over the broom and pushed off the ground in on fluid motion. She then pushed down slightly on the tip of the broom and visualized herself gently touching down on the ground.

   As if on command the broom lowered her to the ground. She stepped off quickly and smiled to herself. Madam Hooch indicated to the students that they should repeat the exercise until she told them to stop. Maria repeated the routine several times until she was confident she could handle the broom. The trick was to visualize what you wanted to do and point the broom where you wanted it to go.

   The class went on for at least an hour and when it was over Madam Hooch talked to the students about what they could do better. Some she told were very good, a few were naturals and many had obviously been on a broom before. When she came to Maria, she looked her over and merely said, "Adequate".

   When class was over Maria stowed her broomstick and went to go find her husband. She hoped her father in-law had arrived with Elanus. As she approached Samuel's office she was confronted with a short line of students waiting outside his door. 

   "What's going on?" she asked one of the students.

   "We're here to set up appointments," a girl with dark brown hair said.

   "I take it he's busy then," Maria said, staring at the door.

   "We've been here for quite some time," a boy several places down the line said.

   Just then Samuel escorted an older girl from his office and looked the line over. "Alright, the class period is about to start and I'm sure you all have class. I'll be setting up appointments this evening in my quarters, just stop on by after class," he said loudly, and attached a note to his office door. The students grudgingly dispersed and went to their classes.

   "Hi," Maria said.

   "Well hello, how were your flying lessons?" Samuel asked.

   "Madam Hooch hates me, but otherwise fine," Maria replied, hugging her husband.

   "She can be a harsh woman," Samuel said, "Have you seen dad and Elanus?"

   "No, are they not here yet?" Maria asked.

   "Nope," Samuel answered in a slightly concerned tone.

   "Think everything is alright?" asked Maria.

   "What? Oh, yeah, dad probably just forgot something. I'm sure their fine," Samuel said, smiling. Maria looked at him suspiciously then shook her head slightly, "Well I guess I'll see them when they get here. I have a transfiguration class to attend," she said. Samuel kissed his wife and watched her walk down the hall. 

   Truth be told, Samuel was concerned. It was not like Elanus or his father either one to be late whether they had everything or not. He knew deep down something was wrong but couldn't do much about it now; he had a class to teach.


	8. Threats and Family

**Chapter 8: Threats and Family**

**Author's Note: **_My schedule has not been conducive to writing lately but here's chapter eight for your reading pleasure!_

   Elanus and Gene sat calmly in a small London park; carefully watching the people come and go. The last few hours had been interesting to say the least. In Elanus' hand was the charred remains of some circular device. He turned it over occasionally, staring at it in disbelief.

   "Are you sure it wasn't me that did it?" asked Gene.

   "I'm quite sure, uncle, in fact I think we might have ended up like it if you hadn't panicked," Elanus said, pulling a small magnifying glass from his coat. He carefully examined the device and muttered to himself.

   "I wouldn't have called it panic, I was startled is all," Gene replied, looking over at the device. 

   "Yeah, Yeah," Elanus said jokingly, "What do you make of this?" he asked handing his uncle the magnifying glass and device. Gene looked the device over with the glass and Elanus pointed out what he was talking about.

   "Two small copper rods, fused together," Gene said.

   "Any idea how?"

   "Electricity," Gene said, "See the coloration," he said, handing the device back to his nephew.

   "I do use electricity in my devices but just a small amount to turn a motor or a clock," Elanus said, "Not enough to do this. Fuse didn't blow, but the diode is shot, it couldn't have overloaded."

   "Why not?" asked Gene.

   "The fuse would have blown, besides the diode is fried, means it had a surge in the wrong direction," Elanus replied, "Besides all that, it's just a watch battery, not really enough power to hurt anything, even if it exploded."

   "Do you think someone did this intentionally?" asked Gene.

   "It's possible, but I've never seen or heard of anything that can do this, and I'm the only one with this particular device," Elanus replied.

   "I thought all the Unspeakables had them," Gene said.

   "Not like this, this one is special," Elanus said, "I added some extra 'privacy' features to it."

   "Aaah," Gene said, "Well how do we get to Hogwarts?" 

   "That's going to be tough," Elanus said, "The Hogwarts Express doesn't exactly take on passengers every day."

   "Can't we just drive or walk there?" asked Gene.

   "I suppose we can," Elanus said, "If Potter and Weasley can find it in a flying car, we should be able to as well."

   "I don't suppose you have a flying car?"

   "Nope, no money either, only thing we got is our clothes and Maria's lizard," Elanus said, pointing to a small cage on the ground next to the bench. Elanus reached into his coat pocket and retrieved his wand.

   "Oh bloody hell," Elanus cursed, "The wand is fried too. I guess that leaves out calling for a bus."

   "Maybe Samuel can fix it when we get to Hogwarts. We aren't getting any closer sitting here though. Let's see if we can find some help," Gene said, standing up. The older man began walking towards the small lane that ran beside the park and began to head off in a seemingly random direction. Elanus hurried to gather his things and started off with his uncle.

   "Where are going?" Elanus asked.

   "Well, I have twenty five American dollars in my pocket," Gene said, "That should come out to about twelve pounds, maybe a little more. I think if we could find a bank and exchange them we could get a cab to Surrey. Perhaps my sister will help us out from there."

   "What from there?" Elanus asked.

   "From there we'll at least know where we are," Gene said.

   "True," Elanus said thoughtfully, "You aren't on good terms with Vernon though. What makes you think he'll let her help?"

   "Never underestimate people," Gene said, "He's a good man, misguided and a bit greedy but a good man."

   The two men walked for what seemed like hours until they found something familiar. By chance they had found themselves in an obscure part of downtown London. Several people were kind enough to give them directions to a small bank that might be able to help them out. They arrived at the bank late that afternoon. It was a small, quaint, white marble building and by the looks of it, very old. The two walked into the bank, which was empty except for a few tellers and customers. Gene approached a teller and reached into his pocket.

   "What can I do for you sir?" the teller asked.

   "Well, my nephew and I have been victim of some unfortunate circumstances, and all we're left with is twenty five American dollars. Would it be possible to get them exchanged so we can get a ride to Surrey?" Gene asked, placing the money on the counter.

   "We're not an exchange sir, but I'll see what we can do," the teller said, motioning for a bank manager. An older looking gentleman in a black suit stepped up beside Gene and Elanus and asked what the problem was.

   "They're wanting to exchange some money," the teller said, "They said they've been robbed. I told them we weren't an exchange."

   "Robbed isn't exactly what happened, but yes we have been unfortunate today," Gene told the man. 

   "How much are you looking to change?" the man asked.

   "Twenty five American," Gene said. 

   "That's what? Twelve pounds? That's barely enough to get one through the day, and you do look like you've walked a great deal," the manager said, pulling a billfold from his pocket, he counted out several paper bills and took the money from the counter. "Here's twenty five pounds sterling," he said, handing Gene several small bills. 

   "I couldn't," Gene said, "That's over twice as much."

   "Nonsense, I insist," he said, and Gene reluctantly took the money. 

   "Could I have your card?" Gene asked, "So I can properly thank you later."

   The manager shrugged and handed Gene a small white card embossed in gold. "Think nothing of it," The manager said, shaking Elanus' and Gene's hand and walking off.

   "Excuse me," a young man said, tapping Gene on the shoulder.

   "Yes?" asked Gene.

   "Did you say you were headed to Surrey?" the young man asked.

   "Yes why?" asked Gene.

   "Where abouts? My wife and I are headed home, perhaps we could drop you off and save you the fare if your destination is on the way," the young man said, indicating a short blonde haired woman next to the bank's door. 

   "That's very generous," Gene said, "We're heading to Little Whinging, number four Privet Drive to be exact."

   The young man's eyes lit up, "Why that's the Dursley residence, not but a few blocks from where we live. Come on we'll get you there."

   Gene and Elanus looked at each other and shrugged and followed the man out the door along with his wife. "Not to be a bother, but they don't exactly know we're coming, mind if we find a telephone and call them?" Gene asked. The young woman smiled and pulled a cellular phone from her purse and handed it to Gene. "You can call information, just hit memory and then seven," the young lady said. Gene nodded and stepped off for a moment just out of hearing of the young couple and Elanus. 

   "I didn't catch your name," Elanus said, offering his hand to the young man.

   "Oran Smithers," the young man said, shaking Elanus' hand, "This is my wife Tiffany."

   "Elanus Green, pleased to meet you both," he said shaking both their hands, "That's my uncle Gene Evans over there."

   "What relation do you have to the Dursley's?" asked Tiffany.

   "That's a bit complicated," Elanus said, "We're somewhat distant family though."

   "Aaaah," Tiffany said, raising her eyebrow, then looked away.

   A few minutes later Gene walked back and handed Tiffany her phone and thanked her. "They said we could stay the night, and they'd help us on our way tomorrow," Gene said.

   The couple led Gene and Elanus to their car and let them in the back. Soon they were leaving London and on their way south to Surrey. 

   "Where are you chaps from?" asked Oran. 

   "Originally, I'm from Manchester but I moved to the US as a young man," Gene said.

   "I'm from Manchester as well," Elanus replied.

   "Funny, you don't talk like you're from Manchester," Tiffany said, looking back at Elanus in a mirror, "More of a Londoner accent. That lizard you're carrying does speak to the American part."

   "You'll have to excuse my wife," Oran said, "She's overly perceptive and somewhat suspicious of some things. It's really none of our business."

   "It's alright, I've been somewhat removed from home for a long time," Elanus said, "No offense taken. You are very perceptive."

   The ride went on for some time longer. After about an hour they finally pulled into Privet Drive. It was a typical middle class neighborhood, neat yards, nearly identical houses, and practically everyone had the same type car. Oran pulled up to the sidewalk and the two men stepped out of the vehicle. Gene thanked Oran and walked up to the house and knocked on the door. It was answered by a large man in his middle years. The man waved to the Smithers and watched them drive off.

   "Gene, so glad to see you," the big man said, shaking Gene's hand.

   "Vernon, this is Elanus, my nephew on Annie's side," Gene said.

   Vernon shook Elanus hand, and eyed the caged lizard suspiciously, "What is that?"

   "Oh, this?" Elanus said raising the lizard, "It's a gift for a friend, you don't mind do you? It can stay outside."

   "As long as it doesn't make a nuisance of itself and stays in that cage, I'm sure Petunia won't mind. Come in!" Vernon said, showing them into the house. A thin woman walked into the living room and grinned with surprise.

   "Gene! Vernon said you were coming, I didn't believe him at first but here you are. You should have told us you were flying in, we would have picked you up. What kind of trouble did you get into?" Petunia said, hugging Gene, "No matter, you two are probably famished and travel worn. Go get cleaned up you can borrow some of Vernon's clothing and I'll put those in the wash."

   The two thanked her and Vernon showed them to the lavatories. He gave them each a set of clothing, which were far to large for them. After they had each cleaned up Petunia took their clothing and returned soon after. 

   "You men sit in the living room, I'll fix you something to eat. We have left over roast and potatoes, or if you'd like I can fix you breakfast food," Petunia said.

   "Roast is fine," Gene said, "Thank you for helping us out."

   "Who's that?" a boy roughly Vernon's size, although quite a bit more muscular asked, pointing to the two strangers on his living room sofa.

   "This is your uncle Gene and cousin Elanus," Vernon said, "This is our son, Dudley."

   "Pleased to meet you," Elanus said shaking Dudley's hand, "That's a firm grip you have. Are you a boxer?"

   Dudley nodded, "How did you know?"

   "You have just have the look of a winner about you," Elanus said.

   "He won the regional championships last year," Vernon said proudly.

   "You must be very proud," Gene said, "I was a boxer in my younger days too. It's a proud sport, but not to be used outside the ring. You can really hurt someone."

   "Oh I know," Dudley said, shaking Gene's hand, "I got in a fight last year with these hooded men.." He said trailing off because of the look his father gave him.

   "He had a rather nasty mix up last year," Vernon said, "We don't like to talk about it much."

   Gene nodded and smiled, Elanus raised an eyebrow at Dudley and shrugged slightly. Soon Petunia came into the living room and announced that their meal was prepared. Elanus and Gene sat down at the kitchen table and ate with much vigor and enthusiasm.

   "How long has it been since you ate?" asked Petunia.

   "Not since this morning," Elanus said, "In Texas."

   Petunia counted on her fingers and then retrieved more food from the refrigerator. "That means you haven't eaten in almost two days counting the flight over. Please help yourselves, poor things," Petunia said.

   "You're very kind," Elanus said.

   "So how did you two end up in the middle of London with no clothes, almost no money and lost?" asked Vernon.

   "It's a long story, but our luggage was lost, so to speak. We got lost outside the airport, since we're both citizens we didn't have a lot of rubbish to go through at customs, though I think it would have been better if we had. After haggling with public transportation system we somehow ended up in a small park near a school. Luckily we found a bank and some kind people willing to take us here," Gene said, "We should have just called you two."

   "Yes you should have, next time you come please let us know, I'd be glad to have you," Vernon said, in a somewhat irritated manner, "There's no reason to put yourself through that when you have family right here."

   "Thank you," Gene said.

   "I know you've been through a rough time, but I've been thinking a lot since you called," Vernon said, "I know this isn't the time to talk business, but I'd like to apologize for how I acted to you all those years ago. You have to understand, I was young and impetuous. Now I know why you didn't want to help my company out all those years ago."

   "Why's that?" Gene asked, somewhat skeptically.

   "It's obvious to me now. You're an American now, you didn't want to get involved with some upstart drill company thousands of miles from home. I was far too bold with what I asked. We're not an upstart anymore though, we've grown tremendously in the last several years and I'd like you to be a part of it," Vernon said, retrieving a small cardboard box from a kitchen counter.

   "Vernon I don't know," Gene started to say.

   "Just hear me out, I won't bother you about it anymore. Everything is cordless now, phones, computers, and even power tools. I took the liberty of having one of our drills brought over," He said, opening the box and revealing a small cordless drill shaped like a large cylinder, "I know this looks like an ordinary electric screwdriver but our engineers have really worked hard on this. This is our most powerful hand drill. It's suited for everything from around the house work to professional grade machining. The battery lasts for more then six hours of heavy use. I want you to take this and use it, if it's not the best drill you've ever used I'd be surprised. Keep it, whether you like it or not and you can get back to me when it's convenient and we can talk about setting up an overseas account with someone you know maybe?" 

   "I didn't know you were such a salesman," Gene said, "Alright, I'll use it, but it doesn't look powerful enough for what I'd be drilling."

   "Trust me, it's a marvel of a drill, there's another machinist I know that uses this model to drill holes in engine blocks on cars," Vernon said, "It's delicate enough to use around the house too. Right Petunia?"

   "Oh yes, I used one to repair the door on my antique cabinet just the other day," Petunia said, "I was surprised how easy it is to hold."

   "Thank you, Vernon. I'm sure I'll be quite impressed," Gene said.

   "Now if you use it for really heavy work, there are some instructions on what to do to prepare it. For some jobs it needs a special battery that adds weight for ballast. It's all in there though," Vernon said. 

   "Well, I'm sure our guests would like to get some sleep, you can use the, uh, guest room," Petunia said, "It's upstairs, Dudley can show you."

   "Thank you, ma'am," Elanus said, "Now, I insist we wash the dishes."

   "No, don't bother yourself, I'll do it," Petunia said. 

   "Well, if you're anything like Uncle Gene, I know better then to argue," Elanus said, bowing slightly and Dudley showed him to the guest room. Gene watched Elanus leave and smiled at Petunia. 

   "Petunia, darling," Gene said, "I know about Harry. Why didn't you tell me Lily had a son? Or died in the first place?"

   Petunia looked a bit shocked, "Is that why you came?"

   "No, no," Gene said, "Not at all, I'm just curious."

   "We never told anyone Petunia had a half brother, because we were afraid what people would think," Vernon said, "I'm sure you can understand, we weren't on the best terms you know. We didn't want Harry knowing a great many things either, his mother and father being who they were."

   "Wizards?" asked Gene.

   Petunia and Vernon looked frightened as Gene spoke the word. They looked at each other carefully before saying anything. "You're a religious man, you of all people should understand our distaste for this magic business," Vernon said.

   "I understand your distaste for things that are out of the ordinary, yes," Gene commented, "I don't hold a grudge, nor do I have anything really against how you've raised the boy. I've met him, he's a good young man of strong character, much like his aunt and uncle. There is a part of me that wishes I had been able to know him sooner, though."

   "How do you of all people know about wizards?" Petunia asked.

   "Annie was from a similar situation, Petunia. Her brothers and sisters could use magic, she could not. Elanus up there is a wizard, a very high ranking one at that," Gene said.

   "We have a wizard in this house!" Vernon boomed.

   "Hold on Vernon, he's more 'normal' as you'd say then any wizard you'll ever know," Gene said, "I practically raised the boy from the time he was eight or nine."

   "He won't be using magic here will he?" Petunia said breathlessly.

   "Couldn't if he wanted to, his wand broke," Gene said, "Don't worry yourselves about it, we'll be out of here tomorrow. Thank you for your hospitality."

   "Gene, we didn't mean it like that," Petunia said, "We've just had some bad experiences with, his kind."

   Gene laughed, "Well Elanus is one of his kind that you'll never have problems with. If you'll excuse me I am very tired. It's good seeing you two again." Gene made his way upstairs and found the room Elanus was sleeping in. Elanus was in a small room that had barely more furnishings then a bed and a chest of drawers. He had a bed made on the floor and was currently lying in it.

   "This must be Harry's room," Elanus said, "They used to keep him in the cupboard. You take the bed, I know how you old people get, what with the back and bad hips and all."

    "Yeah I'll show you old," Gene muttered, purposefully stepping on Elanus on his way to the bed. Gene got into the bed and fell asleep fairly quickly. 

   Elanus, however, didn't go to sleep as fast as his uncle. He couldn't help but think of all he and Harry had in common. Though they were very different people and he stayed with his own aunt and uncle because he didn't want to be a wizard, much was the same. Ultimately he found he was very good at wizadry, and that things were not so bad at Hogwarts or in the wizard world. He quietly stood up and stared out the window at the neighborhood and relaxed at how quiet it was. A laugh nearly escaped his mouth when he realized the angle he was standing at the window. Off to the side, so no one could see him. He spent so many years moving in the shadows that he instinctively kept himself hidden when it was perfectly safe. His smile quickly faded when he spotted a figure standing just across the street. At first he thought it a passer by, or a resident of the neighborhood. The figure was perfectly still, and watching the Dursley home. It stood there too long to be coincidence Elanus decided.

   Silently Elanus walked downstairs and slipped through the back door. Wishing he had his invisibility suit or at least his wand, he jumped over the fence and crouched beside the house. The figure pulled a wand and what appeared to be a long knife from his robes and moved silently toward the house. Elanus said a quick prayer under his breath and crept behind the man, as it was obviously a man. The robed wizard pointed his wand at the doorknob, which turned with only a barely audible click. Slowly opening the door, the wizard walked inside.

   Taking the opportunity, Elanus sprang at the wizard, knocking him over with a loud thud. Quickly, Elanus tried to disarm the man of his knife. The man was too quick, and managed to cut Elanus' arm. Grunting, Elanus punched the man square in the face. Unphased the robed man nearly managed to throw Elanus off of himself before Elanus twisted the knife from his hand. The two wrestled for several moments and it seemed the intruder was about to have the upper hand. Suddenly the lights came on and the sound of a gun cocking was heard.

   "Drop your weapon or I'll blow you into next week," Vernon said angrily. The wizard pointed his wand at Vernon, only to have it snapped from his hand by Gene.

   "What's going on?" Dudley said sleepily, "Oh," he said when he realized his father had a shot gun pointed at the burglar.

   "Call the police, dear," Vernon said to Petunia, who had just then walked into the living room, and screamed. 

   "He's a wizard, someone will just break him out and Oblivate the police," Elanus said, holding his arm, "Best to just shoot him now."

   Vernon shrugged and pulled the trigger on his gun back one click. The wizard screamed then started to get up to run. "I wouldn't do that, it's loaded, I was just getting it ready to fire," Vernon snarled.

   "I wouldn't either," Elanus said, "He hates wizards. I'm not certain but I don't think he'd mind seeing one less wizard if the moment presented itself. He's a marksman too, I daresay he could put a slug between your eyes at fifty meters."

   "What do you want from me? I don't know anything!" the wizard cried.

   "Dudley, why don't you get something to restrain our prisoner?" Elanus said, "A chair and some rope, duct tape, or maybe just a drill and some metal screws." 

   "Yes, sir," Dudley said, running to the kitchen.

   "Mrs. Dursley, would you be so kind as to get me some bandages, I'm getting blood on your carpet," Elanus said, "Uncle Gene would you hold on to our guest for a moment." Petunia hurried off and returned soon with a roll of bandages, a wet cloth and some antibiotic cream. She carefully dressed Elanus wound and stopped the bleeding. Dudley came into the living area with a large roll of grey duct tape and a metal folding chair. Gene roughly placed the man in the chair and secured him with a generous amount of tape, being careful to wrap the hands completely.

   "Vernon, I want you to place the barrel of that gun against his forehead, so he can feel it," Elanus said, "If he moves his eyes towards anything but me, you or the barrel of that gun I want you to pull both triggers. Do you understand?"

   Vernon grinned and pushed the gun against the man's forehead, visibly impressing the skin. The wizard started to sweat profusely. Elanus straightened his pajamas and stared at the wizard.

   "Who are you?" Elanus asked, "Why are you here?"

   "Yngwie Bradsson," the wizard stammered, "I was sent to follow you."

   "For what purpose? By whom?" Elanus asked.

   "I can't tell you that, they'll kill me," Yngwie said.

   "With all due respect, if you don't tell him, my brother in-law will kill you anyway," Gene said. Yngwie groaned as he tried not to look at Gene, which made Elanus laugh. 

   "Listen here boy," Elanus said, staring Yngwie in the eyes, "I don't really care what happens to you. All I want to know is why you were following me, why you thought it would be a good idea to break into a muggle home, and why it is that my uncle and I were nearly killed earlier today. If you won't cooperate I'll be forced to leave you in the hands of these muggles or call in some of my friends. You do know who I am correct?"

   "You're Elanus Green, head of the Department of Mysteries," Yngwie said, "I know your reputation. I was sent to kill you two as painlessly as possible."

   "Who sent you?" Elanus asked.

   "I can't tell you that, you don't know what they'll do," Yngwie said.

   "I can take your wand here and make you think that you're a glass of orange juice for the rest of your life and then you can spend the rest of your days in a mental institution in America where no one will ever be able to find you," Elanus said prodding Yngwie with the wand, "On the other hand I can also make sure that no one finds you and you live the rest of your life well cared for on a tropical island in the Caribbean."

   "It was the New Emergence Council," Yngwie said, "They want you out of the picture. You and your family are to dangerous to let live. They have plans for the wizard world, and they fear you'll get in the way of those plans."

   "I see and what can you tell me about this 'New Emergence Council'?" Elanus asked.

   "Very little," Yngwie replied cautiously, "Only that they want you dead."

   "Vernon, lower your weapon if you please," Elanus said. Vernon lowered his gun carefully and stood back. "I'm going to give you a choice," Elanus said, "I can let you go, and you'll clean up this mess and I'll give you a safe place to go to where you'll not be bothered by anyone. Or we can keep you prisoner here and let the muggle police deal with you after Vernon clubs you over the head with his gun."

   "I'll take the first option," Yngwie said.

   Elanus cut Yngwie's bonds and handed him his wand, "You try anything and you'll be dead before you can leave," he said then nodded to his uncle. Yngwie nodded and waved his wand. In an instant all the broken things in the Dursley living room repaired themselves and were set in their proper place. Elanus wrote down an address and gave it to Yngwie and sent him out the door. Soon the wizard was gone.

   "I didn't know you could be so cruel," Gene said to Elanus, with a disapproving tone to his voice.

   "It was necessary to keep his concentration off magic," Elanus said, "You never know when a wizard can cast spells without a wand."

   "He couldn't have cast a spell here if he wanted to," Gene said.

   "He did not know that," Elanus said, "I did not want him to find out either. Don't look at me like that, you know very well I wouldn't have killed him."

   Gene shook his head and went upstairs and Elanus apologized to the Dursley family. "I'm sorry for the trouble we've caused you," he said, "You all may be in danger now, if you know of a safe place to go for a while, I would do just that."

   "I won't be intimidated by a bunch of cowards and freaks who threaten my family," Vernon said stiffly, "Find them and make them pay. Don't worry about us, we'll be fine."

   "I'll make sure someone keeps an eye out for you," Elanus said.

~*~

   Hogwarts slept quietly but Samuel could not. His father and cousin hadn't come in yet and he was worried about them. Elanus would have sent an owl, a message or something. Samuel reasoned that they were probably just delayed getting some of the supplies he'd requested or were having no luck finding a lizard for Maria. Still this wasn't like them. Elanus' secretary was muggle born and had a telephone. Usually when they needed to get word to each other they used the post office or if it was urgent he would call or e-mail Elanus' secretary when she was home and she'd deliver the message to him when she arrived at work. If they were still in Texas and were delayed an owl would have reached the school hours ago. Something was definitely wrong and he felt helpless to do anything about it.

   Slowly he slipped out of his bed, being careful not to wake Maria. Unlike himself and most of this family, Maria was blessed with the ability to sleep easily. Insomnia was a problem for all of them and Samuel was thankful that it probably wouldn't affect him too much in the morning. Silently he walked out of their quarters and padded around in the hallways barefoot. Most teachers wouldn't be out this late, and only the ghosts, the paintings, Filch and the resident poltergeist would be up this late. Only them unless some students had gotten brave this early in the year and decided to sneak out.

   Walking up and down the halls, pacing in a practiced rhythm his thoughts turned to the year prior. No one had walked away from Hogwarts unchanged. It was the first year in anyone's memory that the majority of the students could see the normally invisible horses that drew the carriages outside the castle. The students were tough now, and while the fringe benefits of experiencing battle first hand did some of them a lot of good, he wasn't sure that was the case with all of them. He worried more then he ever had, regret occasionally crept up on him like a cat stalking its prey. Sure the God of his faith took care of the worry but it was so hard to let it all go sometimes. 

   Now instead of worrying about children, he worried about two grown men who were both more then capable of taking care of themselves. It just wasn't expected or even normal in any case. Realizing that no matter how many times he rehashed it in his own head, it wouldn't make his father and cousin come any quicker. More then anything it was his inability to go looking for them that bothered him the most.

   Sighing he went back to bed, slipping under the covers so silently that his wife barely moved as he did. Wrapping his arms around her gently, he thought of how grateful he was to know where she was, and where his brother was at as well.


	9. Breaking of an Ordered Reality

**Chapter 9: Breaking an Ordered Reality**

**Author's Note: **_I didn't figure this would take so long, considering how short it turned out to be, but here it is. I have a few days off so maybe I can get at least one more chapter out._

****

   Hermione Granger sat in the library during what had turned out to be a dismal autumn afternoon. Rain was pouring outside in torrents, threatening to make the castle grounds muddy and a general nuisance to traverse. She looked up from her book and stared out the window for a moment, shaking her head at how grey it was outside. The book she was reading was a muggle work on castle. An amused smile crossed her face when she came to a description of how cold and dank most castles were. Hogwarts was anything but cold. Dank at times, maybe, but never cold.

   Her classes had been remarkably more difficult this year then she had expected. Thankfully she had precious few to worry about. Advanced everything, charms, transfiguration, potions, and of course the metal working and muggle studies classes she signed up for. Most people signed up for muggle studies, and though she often wished it was from a wizard's point of view and not professor Green's, it was an enjoyable class. Truth be told though, she'd never been very good at anything relating to muggles. The only reason she'd done so well in the previous Muggle Studies classes was because the wizard view of muggles was so absurd and because her parents are muggles they took anything she wrote down as fact.

   "Hermione," a female voice said in front of her. Hermione looked up to see Pavarti Patil, one of her Gryffindor house mates. 

   "Pavarti, what are you doing down here?" asked Hermione

   "I, uh needed to," she said trailing off and then looking around, "No this was a bad idea, I'm sorry."

   "Pavarti, what is it?" Hermione asked, "If you need tutoring I'm busy enough as it is."

   "It's not that, it's my sister Padme," Parvarti said, lowering her voice as she sat down.

   "Surely she doesn't need tutoring," Hermione said.

   "No, I think something in wrong with her," Pavarti said nervously.

   "What do you mean?"

   "Well, you're smart like her and don't get out much right?" Pavarti asked.

   "Just because I take my studies seriously does not mean I don't have a life," Hermione replied defensively.

   "Oh please, just because you have a boyfriend," Parvarti said.

   "Weren't you talking about your sister?" Hermione asked, getting more irritated by the second.

   "Oh yes, she's been very reclusive and doesn't talk much anymore," Pavarti said, "I think something is bothering her, but she won't admit it. Her housemates say she has nightmares." 

   "She's a Ravenclaw, they don't talk much anyway," Hermione said, "Everyone has nightmares."

   "See, you won't admit it either!" Pavarti said.

   "Admit what?"

   "That someone could have a problem."

   "Listen, if she has a problem she needs to go see Professor Green. He's the school's councilor, why he is I don't know, but he's very perceptive and might know what direction to point her," Hermione said.

   "That's just it, she won't get help," Pavarti commented, "She doesn't think she has a problem, but something is wrong, very wrong."

   Hermione shrugged, "So set her up an appointment anyway. Tell her it's for academic counseling. She'll have to go."

   Pavarti nodded, "When is Professor Green in his office?"

   "I think he takes appointments an hour after lunch until right before the dueling club meets," Hermione replied.

~*~

   Elanus and Gene rose early the next morning to find their clothing folded neatly in front of the bedroom door. They dressed quickly and went downstairs where Petunia had already fixed breakfast and her husband and son were busy eating.

   "I'm sorry we started without you two," Vernon said before mouthfuls, "I have to get to work and Dudley has school."

    "Quite alright," Gene said as Petunia brought him a plate. Elanus sat down carefully and waited to be served. Petunia was a gracious hostess and placed a plate before him and inquired about their beverage of choice. Gene took coffee but Elanus asked for orange juice. 

   "Do you have transportation to where ever it is you need to go? I can call in to work and come in late if I need to," asked Vernon.

   Elanus nodded, "My secretary can pick us up, actually," he said.

   "Your secretary? Is she a," Petunia asked, trailing off.

   "A witch?" Elanus asked, "In a manner of speaking. She lives some ways from here but I doubt she's left for work yet. I'll call her in a moment, she can be here in an hour or so I'd imagine."

   "How will she know where here is?" asked Vernon.

   "We don't live in holes, sir," Elanus replied, "This house is very well known to our kind. The truth of the matter though is she's muggle born and grew up near here. You don't mind if I borrow your phone do you?"

   "Go right ahead, I insist you finish eating first," Petunia said.

   "No problem there, this is the best English breakfast I've had in weeks," Elanus said, "You're a kind host, is there anything I can do for you while I'm here?"

   Petunia shook her head and walked back into the kitchen, emerging with her own breakfast and sat down to eat. The house became silent after that as the family tried very hard not to think about the incident the night before. Elanus, who was quite used to strange occurrences finished his breakfast quickly and excused himself to use the phone. Vernon directed him to his study so he could talk to his secretary in private.

   Elanus dialed his secretaries cellular phone number and waited patiently as it rang.

   "Hello?" a female voice said on the other end.

   "Hello, Tanya?" Elanus asked carefully.

   "Yes, is that you Mr. Green?" Tanya asked. 

   "Yes, it is. Uncle Gene and I have run into a problem and we're going to need a ride to the Ministry today. We're at the Dursley residence right now, do you think you could come get us. It's important," Elanus said.

   "Sure, I'm on my way," Tanya replied, "Has anyone seen you? Do I need to call an Obliviator?"

   "That won't be necessary, other then two neighbors, another wizard and possibly Arabella Figg, I don't think anyone saw us. I'll explain on the way to work," Elanus said, "I need to stop by the office before I go to Hogwarts."

   "Should I check on the neighbors?" Tanya asked, I can do that on the way.

   "Might not be a bad idea, the wife was a bit more curious then usual. Their names are Oran and Tiffany Smithers, they live in this general area," Elanus said.

   "Alright, I'll do that, I should be at Privet Drive in about an hour or so," Tanya said, "I'll see you then, bye," she said, pushing the "end" button on her cell phone. 

~*~

   Tanya pulled over to the side of the road and flipped open what appeared to be a notebook computer. Only a handful of people at the Ministry of Magic paid much mind to the fact that she was muggle born. She had resources she could use that most wizards didn't. Her official job was that of secretary to the head of the Department of Mysteries. What few people knew was that her father was a muggle detective and she'd managed to gain access to several large databases used for profiling and gaining information on people. He'd taught her a great deal about his trade, knowledge and skills which proved far more useful to her boss then his own skill in such matters, considerable though they were. 

   After hooking up her cell phone, portable printer, car battery adapter, radio adapter to the speaker jack and an enchanted microphone to the computer she opened a program and typed in the names and what little she knew of the two people she was looking for. She hit the return key and opened up a web browser and put in the Dursley's address to find the best route there, though she already had a pretty good guess as to how to get there. Quickly she turned her vehicle around and sped off down the road.

   After a few minutes had passed a mechanized sounding voice on her radio informed her that the search had finished.

   "Read it to me," Tanya said, laughing to herself as she thought of how far muggle technology had to go before computers understood a verbal command like that.

   "Oran Smithers, born Oran James Smithers, in Chicago, Illinois. Military service: United States Marine Corps, special training. Access denied to all records. Honorably discharged from service approximately two years ago," the androgynous computer voice said over her radio.

   "An American Marine here, not too unusual," she said under her breath, "And his wife?"

   "Tiffany Smithers, born Ann Tiffany Johnson, in New Hanover, Papua New Guinea. Military Service: United States Air Force, special training. Access denied to all records. Honorably discharged from service approximately two years ago," the voice replied.

   "Both have special training. Why would Tiffany join the United States Air Force if she lived in New Guinea? Is she a british citizen?" Tanya asked.

   "Citizenship: United States of America. Daughter to missionaries from the Southern Baptist Convention in Texas," the computer replied.

   "Now it gets interesting," Tanya said, "Print up all information on Oran and Tiffany Smithers."

   Tanya continued driving as her printer slowly produced sheet after sheet of paper. Soon she pulled into Privet Drive and knocked on the door of the Dursley residence. Petunia answered the door carefully and smiled in relief at the auburn haired woman standing on her porch.

   "Can I help you?" Petunia asked.

   "I'm here for Mr. Green and Mr. Evans," Tanya said, "Are they still here?"

   "Oh! You must be Elanus' secretary, come in," Petunia said, showing Tanya in.

   Elanus and Gene were waiting for her in the living room, along with a small travel bag. Elanus stood up and greeted Tanya. "Mrs. Dursley this is Tanya Grouser," Elanus said, "Tanya, Mrs. Dursley."

   "Pleased to meet you, call me Petunia," she said, shaking Tanya's hand.

   "A pleasure," Tanya said, "I know how these boys can get, I hope they haven't been too much trouble."

   "No trouble at all, my brother is always welcome here," Petunia said, "as is Elanus," she said, almost as an after thought.

   "Well, I'll be taking them off your hands now, is there anything I can do for you before we leave?" 

   "No, no, but thank you, have a safe trip. Wherever it is you're going," Petunia said.

   "Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Dursley," Elanus said.

   "Thank you, Petunia," Gene said, "I look forward to seeing you again."

   Petunia smiled and watched the three leave in Tanya's car. She breathed a sigh of relief as they sped away. In her mind, wizards only brought trouble. 

   Elanus looked over the papers Tanya had printed up carefully. He was somewhat intrigued by them. The Smithers were both American military, special operations to boot. Both were honorably discharged around the same time, probably when they got married. 

   "Did you notice anything strange about these files?" Elanus asked Tanya.

   "Besides the fact that they are almost identical, no," Tanya said, "Despite their military experience, it looks like they just wanted to move here."

   "Right, but why here? There's no record of either of them ever visiting England. Why would these two want to move to a London suburb. It doesn't make sense," Elanus said, "Oran didn't even have a passport until he moved here. Tiffany didn't bother to renew hers either, until they moved here."

   "What's so strange about that?" Tanya asked.

   "They both own property in the States," Elanus said, showing her one of the papers. 

   "Canyon, Texas. Where's that?" Tanya asked.

   "Just a few miles south of Amarillo," Gene said.

   "That's interesting," Tanya said, "My opinion is that you're reading too much into them, no matter how strange their files are. My instincts tell me that there's something else going on though."

   "When did they move here?" Gene asked. 

   "They bought the house on Privet drive a little over three years ago," Elanus said, "But they've been renting one nearby for almost six."

   "That's when Potter went to Hogwarts," Tanya said.

   "Think that means anything?" Gene said.

   "It might," Elanus said, "A lot happened that year though. Former Death Eaters became more paranoid, lots of muggle artifacts being enchanted, Potter started Hogwarts, Flemel gave up his stone, libraries began losing books, and that was also when Samuel started his training."

   "We were very busy that year," Tanya said, "I still twitch when I think of the vampires."

   "Vampires?" Gene asked.

   "Was nothing that unusual really," Elanus said, "A small cabal of vampires thought it would be funny to start turning people at random. Only they never saw the people they turned afterwards. A few Untouchables, including Tanya and myself went to go negotiate with the cabal. They proved unreasonable and we ended up slaying most of them."

   "See, only you would say that's not unusual," Gene said, laughing. 

   "I think we better watch the Smithers, there are just too many coincidences to just let it go. Not the least of which is them being at that bank to give us a rid to the Dursleys," Elanus said. 

   "I'll put some people on it when we get back to the Ministry," Tanya said.

   Soon they found themselves pulling into an abandoned warehouse somewhere in the middle of town. The Ministry had conveniently purchased a place for muggle born employees to park their car. Inside the building was much larger and nicer then the outside and even had an alternative entrance into the ministry. 


	10. Void Storms and Untouchable Letters

Chapter 10: Void Storms and Untouchable Letters

**Author's Note:**_Again I apologize for the slowness of the updates. Life sucks._

****

Samuel and Maria sat at their table mercifully devoid of visitors. The high probability of students dropping in unexpectedly had necessitated them to rise earlier and get dressed. Maria worried about her husband who was nearly at a breaking point over his father and cousin. She'd never seen him worried much over anything but the lack of communication from Elanus and Gene had really started to bug him. He put on a good show but when it came right down to it she knew he was scared.

   A knock on the door interrupted the silence. Maria stood up and answered it, expecting to turn away a small crowd of visitors. The other professors said it was improper to allow students in their quarters but this was where Samuel's counseling office was and she wasn't about to turn anyone away. Instead of a small crowd she saw only Ginny Weasley. The red headed girl had a small stack of envelopes in her hands and smiled weakly at Maria.

   "Hello, Ginny," Maria said, "How are you this morning?"

   "I'm fine, I know the other professors told us not to bother you two in the morning but James said I should probably bring this to you," Ginny said, holding up a small envelope.

   "What is it?" asked Maria.

   "It's from Elanus, but James couldn't get it open for some reason," Ginny said.

   Samuel, upon hearing Elanus' name jumped up and nearly knocked Ginny over trying to grab the letter. Maria grabbed the back of Samuel's shirt and pulled him up before he stumbled over Ginny. The Weasley girl couldn't help but giggle as she saw Samuel looking down at her from an unusual angle, being held up by his wife who was scarcely bigger then she was. Samuel regained his composure and stood up, some how getting the letter in hand. He looked at the seal, an obviously magical blue wax designed to keep prying eyes out. Elanus could sometimes be very paranoid, encoding his letters, putting magic wax on them and even occasionally used such mundane means as disappearing ink.

   "Ginny, come in, I'm going to need your help getting this opened," Samuel said as he walked back to the table. Maria led her in and they sat down at the table. Samuel knew what was needed to open the seal. It was typical of Elanus to put an Unbreakable charm on it, as well as several magical traps. Whatever he'd written in this letter was obviously very important. Too important to let even James read it.

   "Why me?" Ginny asked.

   "You're a fifth year student, the counter spells for this seal are somewhat advanced," Samuel said as he examined the wax, "Do you know the counter for a simple lightning ward?"

   Ginny nodded, "Simple," she said as she drew her wand. "Would you like me to cast it at the note?" Samuel nodded and placed the letter face up in front of her, "Careful," he said.

   "_Electrum Annullos!_" Ginny said, pointing her wand at the letter. A small thundercloud formed above the letter and rained on it, soaking it through. "Uh oh!" Ginny said.

   "Don't worry about it, he probably coated it in phosphorous so it'd burn up if opened," Samuel said, "Neat trick, but the water will keep that from happening. Now put cast the counter for the unbreakable charm."

   "_Annullos!_" Ginny said, pointing her wand at the wax seal. The blue wax seemed to turn to stone and then cracked apart. Samuel took the envelope and opened it. As soon as he opened it the paper disappeared and a small cardboard box landed on the table. He carefully examined it and then took his pocket knife from his pocket and pried it open. Inside he saw a folded up letter, a small disk shaped object and Elanus' wand. Samuel unfolded the letter and read it carefully.

   "Oh thank God, they're safe," Samuel said, handing the letter to Maria, "They'll be here tonight if not tomorrow morning.

   "I wish I knew how to do that stuff," Ginny said, "Why's his wand in there?"

   "I don't know, take a look at it," Samuel said.

   Ginny carefully removed the wand from the boxed and looked it over. She pointed her own wand at it and gasped. "It's dead," Ginny said. "So is his teleporter," Samuel said, turning the disk over in his hands.

   "What could have caused that?" Ginny asked, "It would take a big magical backlash to burn out a wand. Like a void storm."

   "Very observant, Ginny," Samuel said, "How did you know that?"

   "I read a lot of your cousin's old papers, they fascinate me," Ginny said, blushing.

   "I'm surprised he let anyone see them," Samuel said.

   "My dad convinced him to let me read a few of them," Ginny said.

   "What's a void storm?" Maria asked.

   "Mostly a myth," Samuel said, "When magic goes haywire it used to be blamed on what wizards called 'void storms'. They're said to be vortexes of nothingness that supposedly drain magic right out of existence, the bane of wizards everywhere. It's a lot like airplane mechanics and gremlins, or miners and kobolds."

   "Except gremlins and kobolds are real," Ginny said.

   "True enough," Samuel said, "I'll take a look at these later, it is interesting."

   Samuel placed the wand, disk and letter back in the box, closed it and touched the latch, "Don't open that," he warned. With book bag in hand he walked out the door to his first class. Maria watched her husband leave and smiled at Ginny, "Thank you for bringing that stuff, he's been unbearable. You've got him thinking now, he has a puzzle to solve."

   "Is that good or bad?" Ginny asked.

   "Depends on your point of view," Maria said with a grin, "I'm sure you have classes to get to, I know I do."

   Ginny nodded and grabbed her wand, "I'll see you this afternoon," she said as she left their quarters. Maria groaned as she shut the door, "Flying lessons, I hate flying lessons," she said to herself as she tied her hair back, opened the door again and left for her first class.

   Samuel walked briskly down the halls towards his classroom. His change in mood was obvious to everyone he passed. Several students snickered and made suggestive comments about why Professor Green was so chipper. For the most part he ignored it until a comment was made about Maria and the student suddenly fell on his face. James saw his brother and walked beside him, barely keeping up with his brother's pace.

   "There's only two things that make you walk like this," James said, "Either something has really intrigued you or you had a lot of…"

   "Don't finish that sentence," Samuel said, "Dad and Elanus will be in this evening or tomorrow, and yes I'm intrigued about something. Elanus sent me a letter written in the code."

   "What? Are they alright?"

   "Yes, they're fine, they had a run in yesterday," Samuel answered. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an American penny, "The letter he sent is in a box on our dining table, this will open it. Don't remove anything else from the box."

   James nodded and walked off to his class. Samuel continued on his way and walked into his empty classroom. The class didn't start for nearly a quarter of an hour, a time which he set aside for students with questions. He didn't advertise that fact except in his classes and made sure they knew it was only for when they really needed to talk to him.

   Apparently someone told Pavarti Patil that he was available. Samuel raised an eyebrow as the young Gryffindor, who was not in any of his classes, carefully approached his desk.

   "Miss Patil? Is it?" Samuel asked, knowing full well what her name was, "Can I help you?"

   "Uh, yes, I think, is this a bad time?" Pavarti asked.

   "No, not really, I just reserve this time for students who really need help in my class," Samuel said, "Is something wrong?"

   "It's my sister," Parvarti said carefully, "she's acting funny."

   "Padme? The Ravenclaw?" Samuel asked.

   "Yes, is she in your class? It would be just like her to take this course," Pavarti asked.

   "No she's not this semester," Samuel said, "Miss Patil, my class starts in no more then ten minutes. Can we discuss this later?"

   "No! She can't know I've talked to you, that's why I came now. I'm really worried about her. She's acting strange, hardly eating, her hair is always a mess, robes are always wrinkled," she said, continuing on with a list of how her sister was not keeping up her appearance. Samuel had nearly tuned her out when she said, "Screams during her sleep," and then he paid full attention.

   "Wait, wait," Samuel said, stopping Pavarti, "Screams at night, why? Is that new?"

   "Her friends say she has nightmares," Pavarti replied, "She was doing that all summer to, but refused to talk about it to anyone. Just said it was a bad dream. I caught her one morning with her face buried in her pillow. She slept like that the whole night so no one would hear."

   "Alright, well if you're really worried about her, I can speak with her," Samuel said, "For girls though, my wife or Professor McGonagall generally handles them."  
  
   "Hermione said you could make her come in for Academic Counseling. I don't think she'll talk to anyone any other way," Pavarti said.

   "Well Hermione is very smart, but she probably didn't tell you that it's against school policy to deceive students like that," Samuel said, "I'll see what I can do though. You better get to class."

   Samuel leaned back in his chair and thought for a few minutes. He'd certainly not expected this at all. Pavarti was obviously worried and though she had a strange way of expressing it, she'd told Samuel more about what the problem was then she knew. Sibling instinct was something he trusted almost as much as his own senses.

   His students began filing in, and he grinned. Despite all the news he'd heard this morning, things were actually looking better then they had since he got there.

   "Ooooo, that woman infuriates me," Maria said as she stormed into Hogwarts from the school grounds.

   "Bad lesson?" Hermione asked sympathetically.

   "To say the least," Maria replied, "She won't answer my questions, barely tells me anything and generally does everything in her power to make me mad."

   "I've never thought that of Madam Hooch," Hermione said.

   "You're not nearly thirty years old, American, and taking beginning lessons either!"

   "Point taken," Hermione said, "So get Harry or Ron to teach you to fly, they're very good."

   "I don't want to learn that bad," Maria said, "No, I've survived worse. I'm going to learn on my own and become a good flyer just to spite her."

   Hermione shook her head, "So, Ginny brought your early mail in this morning. What was it?"

   "Something from Gene and Elanus," Maria said, "Samuel really wouldn't let me read it to close and I think he put some sort of ward on the box."

   "What box?"

   "The box in the envelope," Maria said, "It had a wand, and one of Elanus' disk things it."  
  
   "Disk things?" Hermione asked.

   "It's a long story, but Elanus makes things and they all look like disks," Maria said, "Like that eaves dropping thingy, and the invisibility dome they used last year. I don't think I should talk about it much since he's part of the Department of Mysteries."

   "Aaaah, interesting," Hermione said, "So is Mr. Evans coming to start his class?"

   "They'll be in tonight or tomorrow morning," Maria said, "Please keep that to yourself, I think it'd be bad if that got out and they couldn't come."

   "I understand," Hermione said, "Do you think your husband would let me look at that disk?"

   Maria shook her head, "A lot of Elanus' things aren't even known to his own department from what I understand. You'd have to ask him first."

   Hermione nodded, "I'll see you around," she said.

   Maria watched Miss Granger walk quickly down the hall and shivered uncontrollably for a moment as she did. A few students looked at her oddly and one asked if she was alright. Maria ran her fingers through her hair and smiled then headed towards her living quarters. She found James already inside looking at the box on the table carefully. A pretty auburn haired girl Maria knew to be Jennifer from Gryffindor House sat on the sofa reading a scroll and scratching her head.

   "You do know you've just broken about eight school rules just being in here with her," Maria said glaring at James.

   "I'm sorry Mrs. Evans," Jennifer said, "I was helping him with some of his studies and he told me he needed to look at something Professor Green left for him. We didn't do anything inappropriate I swear."

   "I didn't think you did," Maria said, "Samuel told me not to open that."

   "I know Maria. He gave me a penny and told me it would open it. I just can't figure out how," he said, holding up the penny.

   Maria took the penny and looked at it, "It's his birth year," she said. She slid the penny underneath the latch and gently pried it up, opening the box. James muttered something under his breath and took the letter from the box.

   The Code, as the family had come to call it was something they only used in emergencies, or when they didn't want prying eyes to read their mail. It was a deceptively simple means of communication that he'd come up with. Formatting was the key. To most readers a letter written in The Code was normal, if meticulously spaced. Lines were indented in the strangest places, often in the middle of sentences. The first word or letter, or sometimes phrase of the line below the indention was code. Once arranged in the proper order, which was dictated by the closing line of the letter, the message was clear.

   Elanus had signed it with the words "In God's Abundant Grace, E. Green". That meant that the message started on the fourth code word. By using only his first initial he was telling the reader that a few words might have to be added for the message to become clear. This usually meant added a "the" or an "a" in the right place.

   James carefully wrote out the words in the order intended and came up with, "Bull attacked hired drug blade of dark mystery danger abated caution advised". He took a deep breath and looked for the last code word. Exhaling he penned the last words, "Fifteen One", referring to their code for "victory".

   James looked at the message, although he was sure he knew what it meant. Bull referred to their family and attacked was self explanatory. "Hired drug blade of dark mystery" was a bit more obscure. "Hired drug blade" probably meant "assassin" and "dark mystery" probably meant "unknown origins" or "dark magic", possibly both. "Danger abated" likely meant they thwarted the assassin's efforts and "caution advised" meant he didn't think the danger had totally passed. "Fifteen One" meant they had triumphed with no real harm to themselves.

   "They're alright," James said, "they got attacked it looks like."

   "By who?" Maria asked.

   "A hired assassin apparently," James replied, "A wizard using dark magic perhaps."

   "You mean someone put a hit out on your dad and cousin?" Jennifer asked.

   "I don't know if it was a hit exactly, but someone apparently wanted them dead," James said, frowning.

   "I'm sure they'll catch us up on everything when they get here, I'm sure you two have class to get to," Maria said.

   "Our regular classes are over for the day Maria," James said, "We do need to go study, I need to learn five to ten new spells a day to be caught up by the end of this semester."

   "Ten spells?" Maria asked, "A day?"

   "Professor Longfellow told me  I need to have a large repertoire of spells if I'm going to catch up with my class," James replied, "I'll see you and Samuel later," he said, placing everything back in the box and walking out the door with Jennifer.

   Maria flopped down on the couch and contemplated a nap. Perhaps she'd better learn a few extra spells too, so she'd be caught up with at least the third year students. Of course she had no real intention of becoming a witch, she did like the fencing classes she taught though.


	11. Humbled Hermione

Chapter 11: Humbled Hermione

**_Author's Note: _**_Again, sorry for the infrequent updates. I do have another chapter or two written already. I'll try to post them tomorrow (05/29/04) evening after I revise them. I say try, The Sister is graduating tomorrow and it promises to be pretty busy. Also I apologize for the lack of action; I wanted to set way more up for this story then the scope really allows. Shorter chapters and more frequent updates is what I'm going for. _

_If anyone knows the proper method of making cupric sulphate let me know. I try to research these things better, but that's the most I've found. Don't try the procedure in here; I took a lot of artistic license on what Gene does to produce it._

   Harry Potter and Ron Weasley walked down the hall towards their next class. How they had let Hermione talk them into taking the advanced potions class was beyond them. As sixth years they pretty much got to choose which classes they did and didn't want to take, and anything with Snape's name on it was definitely something they didn't want to take. Yet here they were taking yet another one of his miserable classes, a class which they were both quite bad at. Well, they weren't bad really, after all four years of his classes, and one year taught by a real alchemist the year prior made them at least fairly adept at potion making.

   They arrived in the class room, and Hermione was already sitting in her seat somewhere near the back of the room. Professor Snape glared at the two of them as they sat down. This class was particularly hard as a good number of the potions were some that Snape himself had come up with and were not in any published book. He called it "Improvised Potion Making" which really meant it was ten times harder for any student to pass. There was no help on how to brew the potions, only ingredient lists, and what the final product was supposed to do. Mercifully he gave them what the potion was supposed to do this semester, next semester he would only give them ingredients, and half way through that they'd only be receiving what the potion was supposed to do and no ingredient list. Difficult only just began to describe it.

   Professor Snape prattled off a list of ingredients that they were furiously copying down. They had a good system. Hermione copied down all the ingredients, and Harry and Ron copied off her instead of trying to hear everything Snape had to say. There'd be no hanging on to the hem of her robe after that though; she was having just as hard a time as they were.

   Today's potion was supposed to be some sort of mixture that when poured on something or in a mold and the right secondary potion added it turned to bronze. Snape called it his "No Heat Bronze Sculpting" potion. The only problem, besides the uncreative name, was that none of the ingredients were bronze. Only a few herbal concoctions, some basic potions they'd learned as first years, a bluish mixture, and a few scraps of tin.

   Hermione stared blankly at the ingredients to the potion. It made no sense to her at all, herbs, first year potions, blue stuff and what appeared to be old tin solder. She reached for one of the ingredients then pulled her hand back. A small puff of heat from close by indicated another student had blown his potion up. She turned her head and looked across the room, Malfoy who was usually good with potions was even having difficulty. He had at least managed to get two ingredients together though. Something she hadn't even attempted yet.

   "What's the matter?" whispered Ron.

   "It doesn't make sense," Hermione snapped, "None of this stuff put together makes bronze."

   "Is the infallible Miss Granger having difficulty?" a deep voice from behind Hermione asked.

   Hermione looked around her shoulder to see Professor Snape looming over her with a self satisfied smirk on his face. She straightened up and looked the Professor in the eye for a moment before saying, "This is impossible, there's no way this makes a transfiguration potion!"

   Snape raised an eyebrow, "Are you calling me a liar, Miss Granger? Are you saying that I would give an impossible assignment?"

   "Yes," Hermione said, "This can't be done."

   Snape glared at her and silently went to the front of the class. He deftly began to pour ingredients into two separate vials. He then dropped the pieces of tin into one of them, which were quickly dissolved. With a sneer in Hermione's direction he poured a thick liquid into what looked like a plaster block. He then placed a few drops of a thinner liquid from another vial in the same mold. A slight hissing sound was heard and a strong sulfuric odor permeated the room then quickly dissipated.

   The professor then took a small lead mallet and tapped the plaster block gently. A few cracked formed in the plaster. Snape easily brushed the mold away to reveal a rough sculpture of a coiled bronze snake. With a small amount of filing and a few stray pieces snipped off the Potions Master held up a nearly perfect model of a snake.

   "Perhaps Miss Granger needs to study more about potions," he said walking up towards her. He placed the snake on top of a piece of parchment she had taken notes on and then leaned in close to her, "Perhaps this will remind you to think about what you say, and how you say it before insulting me," he said smoothly before turning around and moving towards the front of the classroom.

   Hermione sunk down in her seat. This was probably the worst humiliation she'd ever experienced, and in front the two people who depended on her the most. For the rest of the day Hermione hid in the library obsessing over the potion and trying to find some scrap of information. She had no success, and she wasn't surprised. The potion was one of Snape's own and probably not published anywhere but his own notes.

   The day passed slowly for Samuel. He canceled most of his after class appointments in anticipation of his father and cousin's arrival. For a while he tried to look up names of wizard assassins but he was always distracted by the sound of what he thought was his father's footsteps in the hall. It always turned out to be one of the older professors he wasn't acquainted with. Finally he moved to a completely different section of the school and left instructions with James to come get him the minute they showed up.

   Samuel's anticipation was finally given some relief when just before dinner time James ran in to get him. Gene and Elanus arrived at Hogwarts with no further incident and little discomfort. Each was given their own private quarters which were quickly put in order by the house elves. They quickly cleaned up before supper time, as they'd cut it a little close.

   Elanus informed Samuel that he'd be staying at the school for at least this semester because of some of his suspicions. Fortunately there was an extra guest quarters, and he could easily Apparate to the Ministry from Hogsmeade if needed.

   There was an understandable air of excitement in the Great Hall now that Gene Evans and Elanus Green were back at the school. The first years at every table, including Slytherin, craned their next to see the "Heroes of Hogwarts" and many of the students that had returned greeted the two with enthusiasm. Gene, Samuel and Maria sat down at the Gryffindor table. After greeting a few familiar faces Elanus slapped Gene and Samuel on the back and said, "I think I'll go sit with my old house of you guys don't mind?"

   "No go ahead," Samuel said.

   "What house were you in?" asked Ginny Weasley.

   "Hufflepuff," Elanus said with a grin before making his way across the hall to sit with Hufflepuff house, almost all of whom were quite surprised. Meanwhile Gene was greeting all the new first years in Gryffindor and trying to remember all the familiar names and faces.

   "Pavarti right?" Gene asked.

   "Yes, sir," Pavarti giggled.

   "The Terrible Trio is missing one," Gene said.

   "You're right," Samuel said, taking a quick survey of the table, "Where's Hermione?"

   Harry looked around and shrugged, "She's probably still in the library trying to figure out Snape's Bronze Potion."

   "She gets obsessed over that sort of thing," Ron sighed, "Drives her to tears. She hasn't ever missed a meal because she's researching though."

   "Bronze potion you say?" Gene asked, apparently quite intrigued.

   "Yeah you pour this goo into a mold or on something and then add the second part and it turns to bronze," Harry replied, "I don't know why she's taking it so hard. No one else figured it out either."

   "Has she done this before?" Gene asked.

   "Once in our first year," Ron said, "I uh, said something I didn't intend for her to hear. She hid in the lavatory, and was nearly killed by a troll."

   Gene nodded, "Troll you say? Well, I think perhaps I'll go talk to her then."

   "Are you sure?" Maria asked, "You just got back. I can go talk to her."

   "I'm a teacher here, I've raised three boys, and you," Gene said, "I think I might know a little about what's going on. Besides, I might be able to help her with her potion."

   Samuel nodded, "Good luck, I guess we'll talk later?"

   "Sure thing," Gene said, slapping his son on the back, "We were planning on meeting after curfew."

   Gene found his way to the library after asking one of the ghosts for directions. The library and the hospital wing had sustained surprisingly little damage from last year's incident, though there was quite a bit of clean up still being done to the stonework. The library itself was a far cry from the modern libraries Gene was used to. One major difference was there were no little paper tags on the backs of the books with the Dewey decimal numbers on them. The books were categorized by contents and then placed in alphabetical order. Another difference was the lack of a big card file system to help find books. Gene assumed there must be some sort of magic at work to help people find the books they need, or at least a master librarian. To be safe though, he kept his hands in his pockets and looked around inside the library for Hermione.

   After several minutes of looking and forcing his eyes away from books that caught his eye, he found Hermione sitting in a back corner of the library that looked like it hadn't been visited much in centuries. That she was a mess only began to describe the shape she was in. Papers and scrolls lay strewn out on the small table she sat at, ink stains covered her hands, and her face was puffy from crying. The quill in her hand was worn down to nearly nothing and it was obvious she'd tried to sharpen it with a dull knife.

   Gene quietly walked over to her and knelt down quietly. "Hello Hermione," Gene said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out two small foil wrapped packets he'd saved from a convenience store. Hermione saw Gene and abruptly turned her face away from him, "Go away."

   "Are you alright? They missed you at supper," Gene said, placing the packets on the table.

   "Leave me alone, I don't feel like talking right now," Hermione said.

   "Well alright, but at least let me sharpen your folding knife and make you a new quill," Gene said. Hermione straightened up and turned around slightly and slid the knife over to Gene. As she did Gene placed one of the foil packets in her hand. Hermione looked at it, tore it open and pulled out a damp napkin and carefully cleaned her face and then her hands.

   "Thank you," she said.

   "You're quite welcome," Gene said, handing her the other packet. He then pulled a small flat stone from his pants pocket and touched it to his tongue. Gene unfolded Hermione's knife, and carefully looked it over before stroking the blade over the stone. He smiled at the familiar feel of the steel, "This is german steel is it not? Surgical steel I'd wager."

   "Yes, my parents bought it during a dental convention in Berlin, how do you know?" asked Hermione.

   "I've been working with steel since before your parents were born I imagine," Gene said, "German steel has a feel to it that you just don't get anywhere else. I bet it took a long time to wear it down this dull."

   Hermione nodded, "I've had it since my first year here, and it's only been sharpened once. I did it with magic."

   "I see, well this is a good pen knife, and quite old," Gene said as he finished sharpening the blade. He took one of Hermione's quills and carefully sliced the tip and an angle and gently split the end. Carefully he shaped the nub and then cleaned the feather. "There you go," Gene said, handing the quill, the knife, and the stone to Hermione.

   "Thank you," she said, "but I don't know how to use this stone."

   "Hang on to it, I'll show you how," Gene said.

   "How did you learn to make quill pens?" Hermioned asked, "This is perfect."

   "Elanus spent the better part of his young life at my home, and all his summer homework had to be done with a quill pen. I had to learn so he could be kept in steady supply, especially so far from a wizard shop," Gene said.

   "I see, thank you," Hermione said.

   "I heard about the incident in your potions class today," Gene said.

   "I don't really want to talk about that," Hermione said.

   "Well, maybe if you tell me about it, I can help you figure out the problem," Gene said.

   Hermione raised her eyebrow at Gene, "How could you help me figure out how to make a two part potion that turns to bronze when mixed?"

   "Well, for one, I am a metallurgist. Two, I know to practically every common alloy known to man, and quite a few that aren't so common. Three, sometimes just talking about the problem can help you figure it out," Gene said.

   "You aren't a wizard though," Hermione said.

   "I raised one of the best though, or at least so I'm told," Gene said, "And maybe you don't need a wizard's perspective on this. It's not in any of these scrolls and books, obviously. Maybe Snape learned how to do it elsewhere?"

   "I don't know," Hermione said.

   "What's it going to hurt?" asked Gene.

   "Alright, where do I start?"

   "Tell me the ingredients," Gene replied.

   "Well, there are two basic potion bases. I won't go into what's in those because I already know how to make those. Three herbal potions commonly used for scenting potions so they can be identified easier. Sage, garlic, and apple vinegar extracts are really what they are. Two other basic potions used for transfigurations, which I think are mixed together to get the right reaction. Also some bits of tin, and some kind of blue liquid that I haven't seen before," Hermione said.

   "Ok, well did he demonstrate the potion for you?" Gene asked.

   "Yes, he mixed it all very quickly, I didn't see what went where though," Hermione sighed.

   "Well you have two potion bases right? I assume those are mostly inert, like saltwater?"

   "Yes, I think one potion goes in one, and the other potion goes in the other base," Hermione replied.

   "So what is really throwing you off is the blue liquid and the tin right?" asked Gene.

   "Yes, I don't know what it is, and I can't find any references to it anywhere," Hermione sighed.

   "Well, it just so happens I know what it is," Gene said, "Why don't we clean up here, and then you can follow me to my classroom and I'll put it to the test for the first time."

   Hermione nodded and gathered all her papers up and carefully stacked the books and scroll tubes on the table for the librarian to take care of. She followed Gene out of the library and down several hallways and into a classroom that as far as she knew hadn't been used until now. Inside were work benches, metal working tools of all sorts, a large strange looking mechanical apparatus, and surprisingly several glass and metal items that would not have looked out of place in a potions or alchemy classroom.

   Gene looked the room over approvingly and walked over to a small closet and removed two heavy cotton aprons and two pare of goggles. He handed an apron and a pair of goggles to Hermione, and then put his apron and goggles on.

   "Do you have the other potion ingredients?" Gene asked.

   "I have all the things I need to make them in my pack," Hermione replied.

   "Can you make them here?" asked Gene.

   "Yes," she said and started unloading her pack on to one of the work benches.

   "There should be burners in that cabinet over there," Gene said pointing to a large metal storage cabinet on the other side of the class room, "I'm sorry there's nothing fancier then propane though."

   Hermione retrieved one of the portable burners from a cabinet and set it up on the workbench, "How do I light it?"

   "There's a valve on the canister, you open that, then hit the ignition button on the burner itself. The flame can be adjusted on the burner as well," Gene replied as he pulled a large bottle full of liquid out of an overhead cabinet. He retrieved a long copper rod as well as a short tin rod from a bin conveniently placed at the front of the classroom. Gene cut the copper rod into small pieces and then made filings from the pieces, which he collected in a large glass beaker. He poured some of the liquid from the bottle into another glass beaker and then slowly poured the copper shavings into the liquid. The liquid dissolved the copper shavings quickly and began turning a blue color. Her placed the beaker over a burner and heated it up slowly, watching it carefully. Finally when all the copper was dissolved he cut the tin rod into small pieces and placed them in another glass beaker.

   "Is this the blue liquid?" Gene asked.

   Hermione looked at the liquid and her eyes widened, "Yes it is, how did you know?"

   "I told you, I'm a metallurgist," Gene said, "This is copper sulfate, well it will be. It needs to be crystallized and then dissolved in water to get any remaining acid out."

   "I can do that," Hermione said, taking the flask from Gene. A quick wave of the wand and all the liquid evaporated from the beaker and all that was left was a bluish powder on the sides of the beaker. Gene took the beaker and dissolved the powder in hot water and poured it into a flask. After placing a stopper in the flask he watched Hermione work with great interest. It took her about an hour to prepare all the potions necessary.

   "Now what?" Hermione asked.

   "Well, as you may or may not know, bronze is simply an alloy of copper and tin," Gene said.

   "I didn't know that," Hermione said, "So one potion has to be able to dissolve the tin. And I add the blue stuff to the other. When mixed it's supposed to make bronze."

   "Which potion will dissolve the tin?" asked Gene.

   Hermione shrugged and stared at the potions hard for a few minutes. She took a small scrap of tin and dropped it in one of the potions. The tin sank to the bottom of the vial with no reaction. Carefully she fished the tin out of the potion and dropped it in the other. The tin dissolved almost as quickly as it hit the liquid. As she added the rest of the tin, Gene prepared the copper sulfate. Hermione added the blue liquid to the other potion and looked up.

   "I don't have anything to pour it in to test it," Hermione said.

   "Just pour it in this bowl," Gene said, handing Hermione a large glass bowl, "I'll show you how to engrave it in my class." Hermione shrugged and poured the first potion in and then held her breath as she poured the second potion in. For the first few moments nothing seemed to happen. Then slowly the murky green liquid in the bowl started crystallizing from the center out. Bronze and black colored tendrils snaked out from the middle of the bowl and started to knit themselves together. Soon the inside of the bowl was solid bronze. Hermione carefully turned the bowl upside down and a lump of solid bronze clanged on the table.

   "You did it," Gene said, looking the lump over, "It's a rather poor grade bronze though. The ratio of copper to tin is off somewhat, still it'll engrave well enough."

   "Thank you Mr. Evans," Hermione said, hugging the old man.

   "You're quite welcome," Gene said, "I hope Professor Snape finds it satisfactory."

   "I'm sure he will," and old sounding voice said from behind Gene.

   "Professor Dumbledore," Hermione said as Gene turned around to see the Headmaster, "Is everything alright?"

   "I'm afraid not, Madam Pomfrey has requested your presence in the hospital wing, there's been an accident," Dumbledore replied.

   "I'm afraid healing is a far cry from my area of expertise," Gene said, "What doe she need me for?"

   "There's no time to explain, I'm not sure I even can," Dumbledore replied, "You'll see when you get there."

   "Alright, you wouldn't mind helping Hermione here with her bronze?" Gene asked.

   "Not at all, please hurry," Dumbledore answered.

   Gene ran out the door and down the halls to the hospital wing. The entire school seemed to have shut down. Whatever had happened, the students were sent to their dormitories early. On the way he passed Professor McGonagall, who after seeing Gene in such a hurry began to quickly follow after him.

   When they arrived in the hospital wing the problem was quite obvious. Three students, first years by the look of it had been injured. They each had vicious wounds on their bodies which Madam Pomfrey and one of the school's professors were tending to. One of the students, a Hufflepuff, was missing his left arm.


	12. Warning Signs

Chapter 12: Warning Signs

**Author's Note: **_This was supposed to be posted a few days prior. My little sister (The Sister) graduated high school on that day so this chapter got put on hold. I promise you'll see more plot soon._

**Another Author's Note: **_I was going to post this yesterday, but I thought I'd slap it up today (06-04-04) so you guys would have something to read while counting down the minutes to see Harry Potter 3. I've seen it already, was pretty good. Didn't suck like I thought it would with the new director. Go see it!_

   Madam Pomfrey upon seeing Gene's arrival gave a sigh of relief and motioned him over. Gene walked over to the bedside of the boy with the missing arm and his injury was quite apparent, although the stump was not it. The boy had a small bruise on his left side, but was otherwise unharmed.

   "Oh my, what happened to his arm?" Gene asked.

   "Nothing to be concerned about, it was removed when he was a small child. That's why I need you, what ever bit him bit his prosthetic arm and mangled it badly," Pomfrey said, "I don't know anything about muggle devices, and you're the only one at the school with any idea about how to repair them."

   "Couldn't you just grow him a new arm?" McGonagall asked.

   "I could, but the limb growth serum takes months to concoct, and even a magic arm would take several weeks at best," Pomfrey replied, "It's not something one can keep around unfortunately. He needs his prosthetic until a more suitable arrangement can be made."

   "It would seem a bit strange if his arm magically grew back when he arrives home this summer," Gene said, "I'm pretty sure modern medicine hasn't figured that out yet."

   "I see," Madam Pomfrey said, "Such a shame. Can you repair the prosthetic?"

   "I can take a look at it," Gene replied.

   Madam Pomfrey brought Gene to the table where the boy's prosthetic arm was laying. It was a mechanical hook, although it was barely recognizable as such. The leather harness that held the arm in place was ripped to shreds, and the wires and bars that made the bulk of the device were bent and mangled badly.

   "What did this?" Minerva asked.

   "I don't know," Madam Pomfrey replied, "Mr. Green seems to think a spider from the forest somehow found its way into the crypts. I don't think any spider could have done this, and certainly not cause the wounds the other two children received. Although the poisoning cleared up with the administration of the spider antivenom."

   "It was strong whatever it was. These are pretty solid devices," Gene said examining the arm, "I think I can have it repaired by next week fairly easy. I don't have any idea how it attaches to the boy though."

   "I'm sure he knows just fine. I'm going to order a magic prosthesis for him though," Pomfrey said.

   "What about the spider?" McGonagall asked.

   "Mr. and Professor Green, Professor Lupin, and Hagrid have gone down into the crypts where the boys were exploring to find whatever did this," Pomfrey said.

   The crypts under the old part of the castle were an uninviting place. They were built several stories below the dungeons which were already a few stories below ground. Hundreds of wizards had been buried here, many of them former professors of the school. Few wizards had permanent burial chambers here, there were exceptions, and the most notable were the former headmasters of the school.

   Dozens of body sized slots were chiseled into the walls, most were empty but many were not. A few had been plastered over and the names of their occupants engraved on them.

   One would expect the smell of decay to be prevalent in such a place. It was not so here, the crypts had not been used in nearly two centuries. A great many wizards in the past two centuries preferred to either be cremated, or buried on family property outside the school.

   Remus Lupin's wand cast a white light that made the general eeriness of the place even greater as the shadows seemed to warp and twist as four men moved down the halls.

   "Fine bloody way to spend my first night here," Elanus grumbled as he brushed a cobweb out of in front of his face, "Down in the crypt trying to find a giant spider. What were those boys doing down here anyway. Isn't that against school rules?"

   "You're a fine one to talk about breaking school rules, Green," Lupin laughed as he looked around a corner and down a long corridor, "Nothing."

   "I never came down here when I was a student," Elanus said.

   "Afraid of deep dark places are we?" Samuel asked jokingly.

   Elanus snorted, "I've just never had an interest in breaking that particular rule."

   "Uh huh," Samuel said in disbelief.

   "You don't believe me? Well I hope it's a giant wasp down here then," Elanus muttered.

   "That's just low," Samuel said.

   "Nonsense, there are no giant wasps in these parts," Hagrid said, "Giant bees, yes, no giant wasps."

   "Bees, right, that's much better," Samuel said sarcastically as he peered down a tunnel to his left, "Stop, I saw something."

   "Remember, if it's a spider, try not to hurt it, it might be one of Aragog's children," Hagrid said.

   "We'll try to be careful, Hagrid. Someone better go down there and see what it Samuel saw," Elanus said, noticing everyone's eyes were on him, "Why are you looking at me?"

   "Go on cousin, put those all those wonderful rule breaking stealth skills to use," Samuel said with a grin. Elanus muttered something and then slowly crept down the corridor. As he moved further down the passage he could hear faint scuffling sounds, and grunts that didn't sound much like any spider he knew of. The smell of dead rotting human bodies filled the air the further down the hall he moved. He looked around a corner and saw nothing but darkness.

   Undeterred he took out his wand and uttered a spell. Suddenly everything around him turned green and he could see quite clearly down the halls. Four humanoid shapes lurched about down the corridor. Elanus grimaced and quietly made his way back to his companions.

   "Find anything?" Lupin asked.

   "Yeah, and they aren't spiders," Elanus replied.

   "What then?" Samuel asked.

   "I think some of the crypt's inhabitants have decided to get up and walk," Elanus said.

   "Zombies?" Samuel asked.

   "Don't be ridiculous, wizards can't be turned to zombies," Lupin said.

   "We better go check it out," Hagrid said, feeling the tension on his crossbow.

   Samuel tightened his hands around his sword and walked quietly down the hall, followed closely by Hagrid, and the two wizards in the rear. "You ever had to deal with undead Hagrid?" Samuel asked.

   "Can't say that I have," Hagrid replied, "You?"

   "Once," Samuel whispered, stopping at the same corner where Elanus had stopped earlier. He looked around carefully and shook his head. Elanus waved his wand at Samuel and Hagrid and their eyes began glowing with a faint green light. Samuel looked around the corner again and winced, "Four," he said. He held up one hand and started ticking his fingers down. When the last finger dropped he ran out into the hall and hacked at the creatures. In a few short seconds there were four rotting heads on the ground and one somewhat disappointed Samuel.

   "Well that was easy," Samuel said, wiping his sword off.

   "Uh, Samuel, I think we have a problem," Elanus said, looking at the corpses. The heads rolled back to their former bodies and reattached. Whole again, the corpses stood up and started clawing at Samuel before he could react. Unable to free himself from their grasp Samuel was quickly drug to the ground. Hagrid shot one of the creatures with his crossbow, but the bolt just stuck in and the creature didn't seem to notice.

   Elanus and Remus pointed their wands at the creatures and streams of fire shot from the tips of their wands. The creatures caught fire instantly and large chunks of flesh started burning off and dropping to the ground.

   Samuel thrashed around for a few moments trying to free one arm. He managed to work one hand free and put it on one of the creature's heads and tried very hard to concentrate. The creatures had ripped off a fair bit of his clothing and pain from their biting shot up his leg, not to mention the heat from the fire. He screamed and the creature's head exploded with a sickening crack. The creature fell to the ground limp.

   "Expellioramus!" the two wizards shouted and two of the creatures flew from Samuel. Hagrid charged the fourth and hit it in the head with the butt of his crossbow, knocking the head clean off. Samuel dropped to the ground, bleeding from most of his body. Hagrid crushed the skull of the creature with his foot, and knelt down beside Samuel. The two wizards advanced on the fallen creatures and crushed their skulls as well.

   Elanus rushed to Samuel's side and examined his wounds, "I think he'll be alright, but we need to get him to the hospital wing fast," he said. Hagrid nodded, picked Samuel up and slung him over his shoulders. They quickly made their way to the main part of the castle and took the quickest route to the hospital wing they could.

   Gene cringed visibly as Hagrid laid Samuel on one of the beds. Madam Pomfrey rushed over and dressed Samuel's wounds carefully.

   "What happened?" Gene asked.

   "Some kind of undead," Elanus replied, "Never really encountered anything like it. Samuel thought they were just zombies of some sort, rushed them and paid for the mistake."

   "You can't blame him, Elanus. They did look like normal walking corpses," Remus commented, "I probably would have done the same thing if I were him."

   "There are 'normal' walking corpses?" Gene asked skeptically.

   "Sometimes areas exposed to dark magic will spawn all sorts of strange things," Elanus said, "Cemetaries are the worst, because the dead bodies there will sometimes come back to 'life'. Generally the Unspeakables and the Obliviators take care of the mess. Occasionally the wizard slayers are called in."

   "So has my son ever had to deal with this sort of thing?" Gene asked.

   Elanus sighed, "Yes, unfortunately he did once. It was his second year of training. I'm surprised he never told you."

   Gene shook his head, "He never mentioned anything like walking corpses."

   "He may not like talking about it. Uncle, you'd be proud of him, that was when we knew," Elanus said.

   "Knew what?"

   "Your boy is utterly fearless, he has the heart of a lion," Elanus replied, "No," he laughed, "The heart of an Evans."

   Madam Pomfrey approached Gene and laid her hand on his shoulder to get his attention, "I thought you should know that he'll be fine. The injuries, though extensive, are minor," she said.

   "He lost a lot of blood, did you check for grave rot?" Elanus asked.

   "I did, once Professor Lupin informed me of what attacked him. Neither he nor any of the children show any signs of the malady. I've given them each a tonic just to be safe though," Madam Pomfrey snapped, "They should be fine by Monday morning."

   "I'll tell Maria," Gene said, "When will she be able to visit?'

   "I don't really want anyone in here for the next day or two," Pomfrey said, "Just in case."

   Madam Pomfrey dismissed everyone in the hospital wing who wasn't a patient and went about her work. Gene, Remus, Elanus and Hagrid walked silently out of the hospital wing and towards the Great Hall. Once they arrived Remus convinced several house elves to fix a few plates of food.

   "You just ate," Gene said.

   "Fighting the living dead makes one hungry," Elanus said.

   "I assume you're going to be here a while now?" Remus asked as the house elves served the food.

   "Apparently so," Elanus replied, "I was planning on leaving for work next week, but I think I'll stick around a while longer now."

   "Why don't you help teach some of my advanced classes then?" Remus asked, "There's nothing like someone with actual field experience, and let's face it, the current head of the Department of Mysteries has an impressive resume."

   "I guess I really should pull my own weight around here," Elanus said, "I was really looking forward to helping Uncle Gene here in his metal shop class though."

   Gene chuckled, "Go ahead and help Professor Lupin here. If you want you can help me out when you aren't doing anything with him."

   "I'll get Dumbledore's permission tomorrow," Lupin said, "This is really going to agitate Severus."

   "I think the Potions Master has enough on his hands to be upset about anyway. Hermione figured out his bronze potion a few hours ago," Gene said.

   "Is he still on about that cold sculpting potion?" Elanus asked, "He came up with the idea years ago. Has he ever made a decent bronze with it? The copper ratio was always too high to be really attractive I thought. It was barely a bronze at all."

   "The snake he gave Hermione looked like a fairly good artistic bronze, I think it could use a touch less tin though," Gene said with a shrug, "Hermione made a pretty low grade bronze with way to much tin. I'm going to see if I can get her to make a similar potion later only with zinc instead of tin."

   "What will that make?" Remus asked.

   "Brass," Elanus replied.

   "For what purpose?"

   "Rivets, decorations, ornaments, doorknobs, and all sorts of other things," Gene replied, "I'm going to make a gift to the school this year and a potion that can make simple alloys like that quickly is just what I need."

   "I think perhaps I'll retire to the guest quarters," Elanus said, "It's been a long day and between examining dead things and possibly teaching an advanced Defense Against The Dark Arts class tomorrow, I'm going to need all the sleep I can get."

   "Good night," Gene said.

   Elanus waved to the men sitting at the table and found his way to the guest quarters he'd slept in the year prior. Hogwarts living arrangements had always been comfortable but the guest always got the best deal at least as far as bedding was concerned. Size of living space was another issue, but most of the larger rooms in the castle were understandably devoted to classrooms. The Unspeakable slept well that night but the slumber of some of the other occupants was disturbing.

   In the Ravenclaw dormitories Padme Patil tossed and turned in her bed, throwing her blanket off several times in the process. Her dreams were dark and frightening. Visions of horrible monstrous beings feasting on rotting human corpses filled her mind. Screams from a thousand dying men haunted her ears. She tried to look away but as she did one of the foul carrion creatures raked her face with its filthy claws. Just before she felt the flesh of her cheek being ripped away she screamed. No one heard the scream being muffled through her pillow.

   Though Madam Pomfrey had given Samuel something to help him sleep his dreams were no less frightening. He could still feel the corpses from below the castle clawing into him, but that didn't make him afraid. A voice in the distance called to him. It whispered promises of power. He wanted to fight against it. Rage welled up inside him. A seething anger focused on driving the voice from his mind if not destroying it entirely. Just as soon as it had came the rage subsided and he was interested in what power the voice could offer.

   In the Gryffindor wing Harry Potter walked groggily into one of the boys washrooms. He had woken suddenly as if from a nightmare. Just as he was about to go back to sleep he felt a burning sensation around his scar. The sensation grew until it felt as if his entire head were on fire. Then it stopped as quickly as it had started and he wasn't even sure he had felt it to begin with. He washed his face, and then went back to the room. He stared out the window a few moments before going back to his bed. Movement down on the castle grounds caught his eye for a moment but he dismissed it as a forest animal scurrying back to its home.


	13. Used Guitar Strings and Counseling Sessi...

Chapter 13: Used Guitar Strings and Counseling Sessions

**Author's Note: **_I'm going to try and format this a bit different then usual. The Fan Fiction formatting really makes these chapters seem much shorter then they are. I do like the three space indent I've been using though. _

_Sorry this one took so long to post. Not my usual excuse this time. There's a lot I wanted to do with this story but I cut it because it was taking too much time and would be hard to get a hold on in a simple fan fiction._

_Also I found I was spelling "Pavarti" and "Padma" wrong. Not really surprising since East Indian words and names always confuse me._

   The weekend was nearly tormenting to Maria, who had to spend two whole days and three nights away from her husband while he recovered in the hospital wing. Early Monday morning she sat right outside the door of the hospital ward waiting for Madam Pomfrey to release him. When he finally emerged from the door she nearly knocked him over as she sprang at him, latching her arms around his neck and planting her lips firmly on his.

   "Well hi," Samuel said, "If I'm going to get this kind of welcome every time I end up in the hospital for a few days I'm going to have to get scratched up more often."

   "Or I could do this every day you come home and you never go back to the hospital again," Maria suggested.

   "Mmm, we could try that. Though in my line of work it's a pretty normal thing," Samuel said, "It's a shame I have to work today."

   "Yes, you could show me your scars," she said with a grin, "Any new ones?"

   "I think they tried to claw out all the old ones actually," Samuel said, "What with Pomfrey's healing tonics and the fact that those things didn't leave but a few square inches of my body unclawed, I think I might end up with fewer then I had before."

   "Awww," Maria said, "So are you all healed up?"

   "For the most part," Samuel replied, "There are a few minor cuts and tears not healed. The instant healing potion she uses is pretty expensive and I told her to only use it on the worst of my injuries and use the rest for the children. Did Dad get Jimmy's arm fixed?"

   "He's been working on it for the last two days day and night," Maria replied, "He and your cousin have been tinkering around with it trying to get it 'perfect'. By the way, here," she said handing him an orange packet.

   "Guitar strings?" he asked.

   "They needed the ones on your guitar to fix the arm for some reason," Maria shrugged, "I told them you'd have a fit, but they seemed to not care much."

   "The boy needs his arm, whatever it takes," Samuel said.

   The two made their way back to their quarters. Outside a few students waited for them to arrive. One or two had small gifts for Samuel and went on their way quickly. The five remaining needed to sign up for appointments, or in Ginny Weasley's case, be of any assistance she could on Dumbledore's order.

   "Let me get them taken care of," Samuel said to Maria, "I'll get them set up for their appointments. Ginny, would you get my bag from inside please?"

   Ginny nodded and quickly returned with Samuel's bag. Samuel thanked her and took out a small ledger book and a quill from his bag. He opened book and set the quill in the seam.

   "Alright, let's get started. We'll start appointments after three in the afternoon," Samuel said, "Who's first."

   "Alright," Samuel said, "Padma, how about three thirty?"

   "I suppose, though I don't really know why you asked me to see you," Padma replied.

   "I see, well come by at four thirty then?" Samuel said.

   "Ok," Padma replied, "I'll be see you then."

   The quill in Samuel's ledger wrote the words "Padma Patil, counseling" in the slot marked "4:30 pm".

   "Harry, are you here for an appointment or just to see Ginny?" Samuel asked.

   "Both," Harry replied, "I can take three thirty if no one else wants it?"

   The other two students shook their heads and Samuel's quill wrote Harry's name under three thirty. The other two, a first year Hufflepuff, and one of the students that was attacked a few days before took five and six thirty respectively.

   "I'll see you all then," Samuel said dismissing them to their classes.

   "Professor," Ginny said, "Dumbledore wanted me to deliver this note to you."

   Samuel took the note, which was really more of a formal memo, and unfolded it carefully, "_I need you present for a meeting with me, and the heads of each house today at lunch if you feel up to it,_" Samuel read quietly, "Looks like another meeting. I may have to keep you as a permanent aide."

   "This is just for detention," Ginny blushed, "I would like to be an aide though."

   "Detention? What for? Wait, let me guess, sneaking out?" Samuel asked.

   Ginny sighed, "Yes, Filch caught me night before last. I was just helping look for Neville's toad."

   "Sure you were. Did his toad hop down into the crypts?" Samuel asked.

   "No I was just," Ginny said, but stopped and blushed again.

   "Looking for walking dead people huh?" Samuel said with a grin, "If you're going to sneak out anymore I'd suggest staying away from that corridor near the main hall. You know the one with the ledge near the ceiling. Elanus is staying here probably for the remainder of the year and that's where he liked to sit late at night."

   Ginny nodded, "I'll remember that. Could I really be your aide?"

   "I don't see why not. I think it's a great idea in fact. I'll tell Dumbledore about it during the meeting. Perhaps we can have some kind of formalized student aide program started here," Samuel replied, "I better say goodbye to my wife and get to my first class. You probably should too."

   "Say goodbye to your wife?" Ginny giggled.

   "Oh if you want," Samuel said walking inside their quarters, "Maria I'm off to class."

   Maria walked into their living room and hugged Samuel, "I love you," she said, kissing him. "I love you too," Samuel said, kissing his wife, "Don't attempt to kill Madam Hooch today. Please." With that Samuel left for his first class of the day. As could be expected the day was slow and both he and Maria were asked several times what had transpired a few days before. Samuel finally consented to details only with Dumbledore's permission, which he intended to ask for at lunch but secretly hoped not to get.

   Finally lunch time came and Samuel found his way to Dumbledore's office. The gargoyle in front of the office was already open as Severus Snape had just spoken the command word.

   "How was class today Professor Snape?" Samuel asked, as they climbed the stairs leading to the office.

   "Dreadful, that arrogant Granger girl somehow figured out my potion over the weekend," Snape replied.

   "Isn't that good? That's the point of the class isn't it?" Samuel asked.

   "The point of the class is to learn potion making, not how to be an insufferable brat," Snape replied.

   "True, she can be that way. Spoiled I think," Samuel said.

   Severus stopped and looked at Samuel, "I'm surprised you take my side on that."

   "I don't think of myself as taking sides. I try to call things as I see them. She can be an enormous pain. Highly intelligent people are often like that, and it's no secret to me that she doesn't like me all that well either," Samuel commented. Snape smirked and opened the door to let Samuel into Dumbledore's office. Professors Flitwick, McGonagall, and Sprout were already assembled in the office, sitting in chairs placed in front of Dumbledore's desk. Also Professor Lupin, Hagrid and Elanus were present as well. Snape took a seat besides Professor Flitwick and Samuel sat by Professor Lupin.

   "Good we're all here," Dumbledore said, "We have some very serious business to discuss here and I don't want it to take up any more time then necessary."

   "If I might interrupt for a second I have two items I'd like to put on the list since the five people who decide these things are already here. One of them might already be on the list," Samuel said.

   "Certainly," Dumbledore said.

   "The first is probably what we're going to be discussing anyway. A lot of students have hounded me about what happened Friday and I'm not real clear on school policy about how much I should tell them," Samuel said.

   "That is one reason we're here, yes," Dumbledore responded.

   "I thought so. The other is about getting permission for Ginny Weasley to be my permanent aide. I've got an enormous amount of work with the classes, and the counseling. I also thought it might be a good idea to set up a program that would allow all teachers to have aides," Samuel said.

   "Now that is a wonderful idea. We'll start setting that up immediately and as far as I'm concerned Miss Weasley can remain your aide until further notice. Any objections?" Dumbledore asked, to a positive response from all the other professors, "We'll discuss this more in detail later. For now though let's get to the business at hand. First off I'd like to let you all know that Elanus Green will be assisting Professor Lupin in his advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts classes."  
  
   "And probably teaching one myself," Elanus commented.

   "Welcome aboard," Flitwick chirped.

   "The second order of business is what transpired last Friday. I wanted to wait until Professor Green had made his recovery so I could get the details from all those present. As far as what the students need to hear, Mr. Evans, I would like to keep that to a minimum. They already know there were 'zombies' of some sort, sticking to that and nothing more is best. Let's hope that it was an isolated incident," Dumbledore said, "I would however like to know how it is that Mr. Evans was the only one injured?"

   "Entirely my fault, sir. I've been in a similar situation before, I thought I could handle it. I saw four zombies, rushed in and hacked them up. They put themselves back together and drug me to the ground. I wasn't wearing any of the armor I normally would have, and I didn't use any of my other abilities. Call it prideful arrogance, youthful foolishness or whatever you want. I was hasty, and I made a mistake," Samuel said, "I'll try not to let it happen again."

   Dumbledore nodded and smiled, "I don't think you foolish Mr. Evans. I would however advise caution in all areas you think you are more then equipped to handle. Is his story fairly accurate in what happened last Friday?" Hagrid, Lupin, and Elanus nodded their heads in agreement. "Do we have any idea where those creatures came from and how they got into the crypt?"

   "I went back down there with Remus the following morning to see if there were any signs of that. At first we thought it just random chance, what with the castle being exposed to so much dark magic last year. However, when we examined the corpses they still had a lot of rotting flesh attached. The last burial in the crypt was over two hundred years ago. They were, for lack of a better word, 'moist'. There's not really any chance that those were bodies buried there. With the few tracks we found and a fairly convenient ventilation hole out in the forest; we're pretty sure they were put in there on purpose," Elanus said, "Either that or they somehow managed to wander past all the stuff in the forest unscathed and crawled down into the shaft. While plausible, I find it highly unlikely the centaurs would have let random undead just slip in."

   "Do you agree, Professor Lupin?" Dumbledore asked, Lupin nodded, "So we must find out who, and why."

   "My best people are all over it," Elanus said, "We'll know something in a matter of days I'd imagine."

   "I'm eager to see the report, and the Unspeakables in action," Dumbledore said, "Now we are late for lunch and I hear the elves have made that wonderful pot roast we all enjoy so much."

   After lunch Samuel had one more class to teach and had promised to help Filch make a few of his rounds on Monday afternoons. Filch claimed it made everything go so much smoother. However the real reason was very few people actually liked Filch, and Samuel was a rare exception. For whatever reason Samuel and the old caretaker had a common bond that few people truly understood, much less Filch and Samuel. Some of the students even attempted to get to know Filch when Samuel was around and the caretaker was beginning to be less harsh about his daily dealings with the students in return. After about half an hour of oiling a few rusty door hinges Samuel and he parted ways.

   Upon arriving back at his quarters he found Harry Potter and Padma Patil waiting on his sofa, along with his wife who was engaged in a lively conversation with Harry. Samuel greeted the two and went into his bedroom to change out of his teacher's clothing.

   "Well, it looks like we have about ten minutes," Samuel said, "Boris!" he called to the house elf attending to the quarters. A small house elf dressed in a clean blue sheet walked into the living room, "Yes?" he asked cheerfully.

   "I hate to bother you about this, but could you have some refreshments brought up?" Samuel asked.

   "Certainly," Boris said, running off into a small compartment in the corner of the room.

   "When he gets back we'll go talk," Samuel said to Harry. A few minutes later Boris placed a small platter of lemon cookies on the small coffee table. Another house elf came in bearing a small tray filled with small cups of some sort of clear fizzy liquid. Samuel thanked the house elf and helped himself to a few cookies and a cup of the fizzy liquid. "Shall we?" he asked Potter. Harry nodded and followed Samuel into his counseling chambers.

   Samuel took a seat in a large green armchair and motioned Harry towards a similar armchair facing his. When Harry sat down the chair leaned back and the cushions became somewhat softer. "Pretty neat huh, it adjusts itself to you. I had Flitwick enchant it," Samuel said, "So what's on your mind?"

   "I really don't know if I should bother you with this," Harry replied, "It's not a big deal. I shouldn't waste your time."

   "Hmm, well why don't you tell me and I'll decide if my time is being wasted," Samuel said, "There will be no hard feelings either way. How about that?"

   "I suppose I should tell someone. It's just that my scar felt like it was on fire last night," Harry confessed.

   "I assume that's not a normal occurrence. What makes it do that? Do you know?"

   "Well, when Voldemort was around it would hurt. Never like this though."

   "I don't think you have much to worry about Voldemort anymore. He's gone, so that can't be it," Samuel commented, "Is there anything else that makes it burn?"

   "Not that I know of," Harry sighed, "Only when he was planning something, or if something very bad was about to happen."

   "Dumbledore mentioned to me that you two shared some kind of bond with each other," Samuel said, rubbing his chin.

   "What do you think it means?" Harry asked.

   "I don't know," Samuel replied, "I don't think it's a good sign at any rate. Did anything else happen last night?"

   Harry shook his head, "No," he replied, squirming in his chair ever so slightly.

   "I see. Are you sure? This could be important," Samuel asked.

   "No, I didn't see anything," Harry said.

   Samuel raised an eyebrow and smiled, "Well, if it happens again, be sure to tell me immediately. Even if you have to wake me up in the middle of the night," Harry nodded and shifted his weight.

   "Anything else?" Samuel asked, "I think you have a whole forty five more minutes."

   "No, I don't think so," Harry replied.

   Samuel nodded, "Mind if I inform Dumbledore?" Harry shook his head, "Go ahead."

   "Well if you're sure you don't have anything else, I think we're done here," Samuel said, showing Harry out the door, "Feel free to hang about if you want." Harry smiled and left their quarters. Maria and Padma were sitting on the sofa talking their apparent mutual dislike for Madam Hooch. As Harry left Maria looked up at her husband inquisitively, "That was fast."

   "Not much to talk about," Samuel said, "Well Miss Patil it looks like you have a choice. We can wait until four thirty or you can come in now and we'll be done early."

   "We can start now. I hear these meetings can take some time," Padma said.

   Samuel nodded, "Right this way then," He said, opening the door to his office. Padma walked inside and Samuel faced his wife and touched the middle joined of his index finger to his forehead before closing the door behind him. Samuel gestured at the seat Harry had been sitting in. Padma's face took on a puzzled look as she glanced from the chair to the book bag she held under her arm.

"What's wrong?" Samuel asked.

   "Shouldn't we sit at your desk to discuss the papers? There's more room to spread them out," Padma suggested.

   "Well I like to think these meetings are a bit more informal then all that but I see your point," he said while dragging a small table between the chairs, "now we have a table, and comfortable chairs."

   "I have a good academic record here. You'll see from my marks and comments from my teachers that while I'm not the best student here, I'm well above average," Padma said, placing a few papers on the table. Samuel picked up a few of the papers and looked them over as Padma continued talking about her studies. He smiled at many of the comments left by the various teachers. Flitwick's were especially encouraging, although it was a rare occurrence when Flitwick couldn't find anything nice to say about a person.

   Her grades were excellent until the beginning of this year. They dropped ever so slightly. Most would chalk it up to more difficult subjects, or simply laziness but Samuel knew better. Padma was not the kind of girl who'd be lazy or let her grades falter much simply because the classes were more difficult.

   "I see everything is in order here," Samuel said as he returned the paper to its stack. Padma carefully straightened the papers and looked intently at Samuel. "What?" he asked.

   "I assumed this is an academic counseling session? Do you have any advice?" Padma asked.

   "I'm sorry, you're right. I had a bit of a restless night last night," Samuel said, rubbing his forehead for a moment, "What is it you want to do with your life after Hogwarts?"

   "I'm going to become either an Obliviator or an Unspeakable," she said in a matter of fact tone, "I would prefer Unspeakable."

   "I see. My experience, and my cousin, tells me that those are some pretty tough positions to get into right out of Hogwarts," Samuel said, "They can take a while, and there is a waiting list for Unspeakable positions at least. Have you given any thought to what you want to do in the year or two in between graduation and getting your entry position?"

   Padma squirmed in her seat and blushed ever so slightly. Samuel chuckled, "What?"

   "Oh no, it's silly," Padma said, "You'll laugh."

   "Well, why don't you tell me about it so I can have a good laugh? It's been a while for me you know," Samuel said.

   "I would very much like to travel. I'd like to see some places in India and the Americas before I settle down into a career with the Ministry. I also want to," Padma hesitated, "No it's silly."

   "You want to what?" asked Samuel.

   "Get married," Padma blurted out, and blushed a delicate crimson as she did.

   "Well, to anyone or is there some particular lucky boy out there?"

   "I don't know yet," she sighed, "It's been a kind of dream of mine for a long time. Promise you won't tell Pavarti?"

   "Anything said in this room stays in this room," Samuel replied, "Plus I imagine if I told Pavarti the squealing that ensued would be unbearable."

   "Yes, it would," Padma giggled.

   "It seems like you have some good ideas about what you want to do with your life Miss Patil. I hope those ideas and dreams come true for you," Samuel said, "I do have a confession to make, and a question or two more though. I didn't actually request this meeting and though I have a pretty good idea who did, I'm not exactly thrilled."

   Padma looked confused as she drew a neatly folded piece of parchment from her robe, "My sister gave me this note from you. This is your handwriting isn't it?" she asked. Samuel raised an eyebrow and took the note. It was definitely his handwriting but he hadn't written it.

   "Yes it is, and either my brother forged it or someone here has something they're not supposed to have," Samuel chuckled, "I'll deal with this later though. May I ask you a few questions?" Padma nodded and folded her hands in her lap.

   "Would you be too terribly inconvenienced or offended if I asked you to schedule regular weekly meetings?" Samuel asked.

   "I suppose not. Why?" Padma asked.

   "Truth be told, I'm actually glad you came in for counseling. Your sister told me of some concerns she has and quite frankly I'm a little concerned myself," Samuel said.

   Padma eyes widened and she looked away from Samuel for a moment, "Is this about me screaming in the night and being 'distant' as my sister has so often put it?"

   "I won't lie to you, yes it is," Samuel said, "She's concerned, and your roommates are concerned as well."

   "They're just nightmares."

   "That's probably all it is, Miss Patil. It's completely up to you whether or not you come in for weekly counseling. All I want to do is talk to you about it, no pressure at all. I would suggest you think about it very carefully though."

   "Am I excused?" Padma asked as she quickly gathered up her papers, "I might think about it, and you can tell my sister to worry about herself more."

   Samuel nodded and opened the door for Padma who rushed out, only barely stopping to nod politely to Maria as she left. "Bad session?" Maria asked.

   "I can't really talk about it," Samuel replied, "I hope she'll be back though."

   The other two students had similar complaints as Harry. They had nightmares, and a general sense of uneasiness about the events that had happened only nights before. The boy who was actually attacked was a mess on several levels. He could barely speak a whole sentence before breaking into tears. Samuel wrote a note to Dumbledore explaining the problem and recommended the boy be given a few days more away from class. He also recommended that he speak to the other two boys as soon as was convenient to see if they were showing similar problems.


	14. The Assignment

Chapter 14: The Assignment

**Author's Note: **_I can not apologize enough for this taking so long. I'm trying to get back on track with getting these posted on a timely basis. It's my goal to be a few chapters ahead and end this story in somewhere around 25-30 chapters which means this is the half way point. I do have the next story planned and it will not take place in Hogwarts, which should be a fairly novel concept for a Harry Potter story._

Elanus looked carefully at what appeared to be a metallic hand and shook his head. Each steel finger touched the metal thumb one right after the other rapidly back and forth. Gene shook his head and tightened a small screw on the back of the hand and nodded to the boy who was wearing it. The fingers touched the thumb slower and more accurately as they moved.

"How does it feel, Jimmy?" Gene asked the boy.

"Almost like my real hand. It doesn't move exactly when I want though," the boy said.

"You'll just have to get used to that," Elanus said, "I'm surprised you can even sense the delay."

"It's very slight," Jimmy said, curling his new hand into a fist and uncurling it again, "Are you sure I can use this at home?"

"Yes sir," Gene replied, "Tell anyone who asks that it's a prototype and you have to check with the 'robotics company' who made it if they ask more questions."

"Oh it's time for class," Elanus said looking down at his wrist watch.

"What are you teaching today?" Gene asked.

"Just my most favorite subject in the whole world! Vampires!" Elanus said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"How ironic, a werewolf teaching about vampires," Gene chuckled.

"You know I said the same thing to Remus, he didn't get it," Elanus said, "I'm off."

Elanus walked into the Defense Against the Dark Arts room just a few minutes after Remus had started his lecture. He looked at Remus sheepishly and sat near the back of the classroom. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff sixth years were sharing the class this session and it seemed more relaxed then normal.

"Who can tell me why vampires are not able to enter a private residence?" Remus asked. Hermione's hand shot straight up as usual, and as usual no one else in the class even dared a guess. Elanus smirked as Hermione started waving her hand around in the air.

"Miss Granger?" Remus sighed.

"Yes, a vampire is can not pass over the threshold of a private home because of the ancient custom of placing a bundle of daisies outside of one's door. Also many old homes had thresh holds and door frames made out of mountain ash, or rowan wood which is bane to vampires," Hermione said with a matter of fact tone. Elanus raised and eyebrow and held back a chuckle at her response, and the superior posture Ron took in reply to her answer.

"That's one of the more innovative answers I've heard," Remus said, "Unfortunately it's also wrong." The entire classroom turned their heads to Hermione, who suddenly looked put upon. "Ron, it looks like you have something to add?" Remus asked.

"It's a trick question isn't it?" Ron asked, "Vampires can enter a home if they're invited, and not even they know why they can't enter if they aren't."

"Correct," Remus said, "It's unknown even to this day why vampires can't enter a home without being invited. This doesn't just apply to a house either. Any place a person calls 'home' can not be entered by a vampire. There was a case in America some years ago of a vampire who found a soggy cardboard box that a homeless man lived in quite impenetrable. On another occasion in our own country a vampire found himself unable to come within twenty feet of a campfire. Apparently a rather eccentric fellow called the great outdoors home and wherever he placed his campfire and bed roll became his home for the evening."

"That doesn't make sense," Hermione snapped, "How could someone's home move around every day?"

"Those are extremely rare cases, that doesn't happen often. It's really the concept of what home is," Remus said, "A home is what a person makes it. Whether a person's home is an actual house, or with some very rare individuals a bed roll and a campfire is entirely up to them. Now since this is Defense Against the Dark Arts we should be learning ways to defend against vampires, or at least what to do if you encounter one. It just so happens that my counterpart in the back there has dealt with vampires in the past, both hostile and friendly. Professor Green would you be so kind as to share your thoughts on the subject?"

Elanus nodded and slowly strode to the front of the class and Remus sat down and gave Elanus his full attention. "Well the first thing everyone should realize as Remus touched on is that not all vampires are by necessity evil. A few might actually be called 'good' and most are simply benign. Where you need to know to defend yourself is with those that aren't so benign. Hopefully none of you will ever have to face an evil vampire, but it has happened before.

What's interesting to take note of, and not too commonly discussed by wizards is that muggles have been dealing with vampires for much longer then we have. They have developed methods of killing them that are so efficient that vampires nearly ceased to exist in the middle of the nineteenth century. In fact most of our methods of defending ourselves against vampires has been taken directly from methods used by muggle vampire hunters."

"So what do we do to defend ourselves against a vampire?" a Hufflepuff girl asked.

"A very good question. The best tactic, as with most things in this class, is complete avoidance whenever possible. Traditional methods outlined in your books generally work well. Garlic for instance will keep a vampire at bay indefinitely or until the smell and potency fade. Amazingly one method that works spectacularly well and isn't mentioned in any of your literature is the use of daisies," Elanus replied.

"Daisies?" a Gryffindor boy asked. The rest of the Gryffindors smirked.

"Yes, daisies, specifically the common white daisies that you find growing wild in country fields. Vampires for whatever reason find them repellant, perhaps due to their association with the sun. Other related flowers have a less noticeable effect, with one surprising exception: The chicory flower," Elanus said.

"I read about that," Ron said, "Wasn't coffee made from chicory partially responsible for the New Orleans Covenant?"

"That hasn't exactly been proven, but yes that's the idea of it. 'Coffee' made entirely from or with chicory in it tends to make a person's blood taste very bad to a vampire. You won't find that in any of your school books or in most of our libraries because it hasn't been proven. From personal experience though, I'd say it is in fact true," Elanus replied, "Shall I give them an assignment, Professor Lupin?"

"Well you could go on with the lecture but I think we should continue it some other time," Remus replied, "Yes, give them an assignment."

"Have they had a practical lesson?" Elanus asked.

"Not yet this year, no," Remus replied, "We can't exactly take them vampire hunting though, for reasons that should be obvious."

"I wasn't thinking of that," Elanus said, "Alright class, your assignment will be a three scroll essay on the various techniques used to defend against vampires. An additional two scrolls with ideas on the practical implementation of those techniques and any new thoughts on the subject you might have. Additionally you will prepare a 'kit' with the necessary components to deal with a vampire. This kit will include things needed to deal with friendly vampires as well. You can present an actual literal kit, which shouldn't be too difficult for sixth years or a description of what you'd place in one and if possible a drawing. The kit should be portable, and should not contain anything that has a shelf life of less then a decade."

The class murmured quietly and seemed annoyed at having been assigned a five scroll essay and having to do a project all at once. "This will be due at the first of next month," Remus said, "That's two weeks, I suggest you get started as quickly as possible."

"Can we do it in teams?" asked one of the students.

Remus looked at Elanus questioningly and Elanus nodded. "Certainly," Elanus said, "but everyone still needs to turn in their own essays and kits or descriptions. You can copy off each other and make two identical kits, but everyone needs to have their own."

"Alright, class dismissed!" Remus said. The students gathered their things and began moving out of the classroom. Hermione was the last to leave, giving Elanus and Remus both hard looks as she did.

"What's her problem?" Elanus asked.

"She's not used to being wrong," Remus said, "She's definitely not used to Ron knowing more about something then her either."

"Most people aren't," Elanus chuckled, "I would have thought mentioning daisies and giving five page assignment would cheer her up a bit though."

"I'm curious, why a vampire kit?" Remus asked, "We haven't had any problems with vampires in a decade, besides most of that stuff isn't going to be too friendly to me either you know."

"I look at it this way. They build a kit here in school where everything is provided for them, they won't have to do it later. Most of the things a vampire hunter would keep around also work for other kinds of nuisances you'd find in daily wizard life. I put together a similar kit when I was fresh out of Hogwarts and I've added to it over the years. It's saved my life more times then I can count," Elanus replied, "Besides, it's a good lesson in resource acquisition."

"What are we grading on?" Remus asked.

"How complete it is, and whether it can be used to help a vampire as well as harm one if need be," Elanus replied, "and of course creativity.

Hermione shot a dirty look at James as he was coming out of a third year transfiguration class. He didn't particularly understand why, but the sympathetic glance he received from Ron told him enough. James really wanted to be in the classes with people his own age, but McGonagall told him that he wasn't ready. His wand technique was adequate, he grasped the concepts of the spells well, and despite being made fun of for his Texan accent, his pronunciation and inflexion were dead on. Gene didn't tolerate lazy speech, and had made sure both of his sons could speak well.

James would spend the next few weeks doing nothing but expanding his repertoire of spells and listening to the complaints of his fellow students about the vampire kit assignment his cousin had made. He was not looking forward to the latter.


	15. The Kidnapping

Chapter 15: The Kidnapping

**_Author's Note:_**_ I promise if it's the last thing I do I'll finish this story. Time has been really tight lately but this is about the half way point in this story so at the rate I've been going I'll have it done sometime in 2007. No, I'm hoping to do a lot of work on it during the Christmas holidays. Thanks for your patience!_

The weeks seemed to drag by for everyone at Hogwarts, especially for the older students. All things considered this had been one of the most uneventful years at school any of them had ever seen. Except the incident in the school crypt there was almost nothing going on. It was becoming downright dull at the school and while many were grateful for the reprieve, a few in particular were extremely restless.

The only excitement to be found was "Professor Elanus' Scavenger Hunt" as most of the students referred to it. Elanus and Remus had assigned several more additions to the kits made earlier in the year and by Halloween many of the sixth years had decent sized boxes full of articles used in the defense of the dark arts. One of the students had suggested they write down how to deal with certain situations on small cards. They called it the "Slythern Recipe Box" after the student's house.

Even the first years had begun assembling their own simple kits for various situations and many of the other professors had suggested additions where necessary. It had become a competition of sorts among the students over who had the most complete kit.

While this kit building had been a nice diversion it just didn't suffice. The normal amount of gossip had dwindled to the point that the only rumors around school were about what Maria and Madam Hooch had fought over in the last flying lessons class.

As Halloween neared the students became more and more excited as almost everyone knew by now that Samuel and James had connections with the Weasley twin's joke shop. Samuel had been secretly giving small, and relatively harmless items to various students. He seemed to prefer giving them to the first years who saw it as their chance to get even with the 'oppressive upper classmen'. This was mostly an excuse for playing jokes on prefects.

Two weeks before Halloween Hermione was making daily trips to Dumbledore's office to complain about popping door jams, transmuting candy and various other jokes that had been played upon other students. The only person who seemed unaffected by the rampant prank pulling was Gene and the theory was that James and Samuel had forbidden anyone from bothering him. The truth was that Gene after raising three boys had a second sense about practical jokes and in his amusement and curiosity would sometimes touch the often magical devices rendering them inert, much to his disappointment and frustration.

On Halloween morning the school was literally humming with excitement. Everything was decorated with black cats, orange pumpkins and every other sort of Halloween themed decoration one could imagine. Many of the professors placed candy dishes on their desks for the enjoyment of the class and their lessons were mostly entertaining rather then educational. Even ghostly Professor Binns had a scary story to tell that day.

Being one his favorite holidays, Samuel went to great lengths to show his class things about a muggle Halloween and how similar it was to the way wizards celebrated it. He showed them a few plastic muggle costumes and gave a demonstration on how cosmetics were used to simulate wounds, fur, warts and even extra body parts.

After day's last class was dismissed the excitement about the Halloween night feast grew to almost tangible levels. Rumors had been flying about Samuel and Dumbledore making plans for a huge joke that was to be played on the students that evening as Professor Green had been seen entering Dumbledore's office on a fairly regular basis. Sure enough Samuel went to the headmaster's office that evening before the feast.

"Do you care for some tea?" Dumbledore asked as he waved his wand at a small copper kettle, which immediately began to boil and whistle.

"No thanks, I'm saving room for dinner," Samuel replied, "I have reached a somewhat disturbing conclusion about Padme Patil though, and I hate to bring this up today but I feel the sooner you know the sooner a decision can be made."

"I see, has she agreed to the sessions?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes, grudgingly at first. She's a smart girl and knows when something is wrong and she finally agreed to see me on a regular basis a few weeks ago. I had some suspicions at first, because in my former line of work you see this kind of thing a lot. Since I'm not extremely knowledgeable in this field I can only tell you what it might be, and what I've seen," Samuel said.

"Go on."

"Padme seems to be suffering from what soldiers in the old days used to call 'shell shock'. Muggle doctors call it 'post traumatic stress disorder', it usually happens when someone goes through a bad experience like the loss of a loved one, an act of violence, war, or even something like a car crash. Their minds get wounded so to speak. It doesn't happen to everyone mind you, nor does someone actually have to go through a painful experience to get it," Samuel said, "Miss Patil seems to be experiencing a lot of the same symptoms people with this problem do. Her symptoms seem to be relatively minor compared to some of the cases I've read about and even seen."

"How did this happen?"

"The best I can figure is that she was in with the students that were helping the wounded during last year's battle. I think she had the misfortune of watching a lot more then one person die a really horrible death. The killing curse tends to do that to people. Now I know there are several older students here that had to see the same thing, but like I said it doesn't happen to everyone."

"What is your recommendation?" Dumbledore asked, "What can be done?"

"Sometimes, but not often, people recover by themselves. It's not unheard of, but it isn't usual, and therapy is usually required. It's my suggestion that she go see a muggle psychiatrist who's both privy to the wizard world and has experience with patients suffering from shell shock. If that's not an option she might find help in someone that's had it and recovered."

"What about Saint Mungo's?"

"It's not a magical problem, and from what I've seen at Saint Mungo's they'll likely do more harm then good. For the most part she's a completely normal teenage witch. I really suggest she see a muggle doctor about this," Samuel replied, "There's no magic potion to make her get well. In fact when I say 'recovered' I mean to say that they learn how to deal with the problems and no longer experience them as badly. It's something that sticks with them for the rest of their life, even with help."

"I see, you do know that I'll have to inform her parents of this?" Dumbledore asked.

"That's what I told her. She said it was alright with her," Samuel said and then chuckled, "She's really a bright young woman, she told me that the only way she'd get better is if she admitted to herself there was a problem. I think whatever doctor gets her will have a model patient."

Dumbledore nodded, "Well if that is all then we should go see what the house elves have prepared for us for this year's feast."

Samuel nodded and opened the office door for the headmaster and the two found their way to the Great Hall. The feast was already prepared and the smell of roast chicken and beef made their mouths water almost as fast as the sight of bowls filled to the brim with boiled mushrooms and the platters of scalloped potatoes. The first course was exquisite, bested only by the decadent desserts that followed. Cakes, pies and pastries of all sorts filled the tables and the students were not shy about helping themselves.

When the meal was over the students heard a suitably spooky tale from the headmaster complete with magical illustrations and the help from some of the ghosts that called the school home. The students were then dismissed to socialize before retiring to their dormitories. Three older Slythern boys had cornered a few younger Hufflepuff girls and Gryffindor girl in one of the school's many halls.

"Hey," one of the Slythern boys said, "Why don't we go down to the crypt."

"That isn't allowed!" the Gryffindor girl said, "You saw what happened to Jim when he went down there."

"Bah! Janie, you know he was already missing that arm. Besides all that Professor Green and his cousin destroyed those things. I just want to see what's left of them," The boy said, "Unless you Hufflepussies are scared?"

"We're not scared Wyatt! And don't call us that!" one the Hufflepuffs said defiantly.

"Ooo, is the little Hufflepussy going to hurt me?" the Slythern boy asked, "Come on guys I want to see some dead zombie."

The three Slythern boys ran down the hall towards the crypt stairwell. "Let's go," the Hufflepuff girl said.

"I don't think this is such a good idea," Janie said.

"There's nothing down there, and I don't want to give that boy another excuse to call us that!" the Hufflepuff said, chasing the three Slythern's down the call. The rest of the girls followed close behind. The Slythern boys stopped at the end of a deserted hallway and waited for the girls to catch up.

"Thought you weren't coming," Wyatt said as he fumbled around for something at the end of the hall.

"Scared?" Janie asked, shifting her weight to her right foot, "We're waiting."

Wyatt sneered, "I just have to find the right brick is all," he said poking his wand into holes in the mortar between the bricks. "There we go," he said as a door appeared on the wall. "Ladies first," Wyatt said, opening the door. Janie crossed her arms and raised her left eyebrow at Wyatt, then peered into the door. A dark stone stairwell led down into the bowels of the school so far that Janie was sure she couldn't see the bottom. She snorted and drew her wand from her robes, "_Lumos!_". The end of her wand began glowing an intense white light and she made her way down the stairs.

Turning her head back she saw that no one was following her, "Come on you babies, or are you all 'Slyssies'?". The stairwell only got darker the further she descended. Her only reason for not turning back was that she could hear several sets of footsteps behind her. Finally she reached what she sincerely hoped was the bottom and not just another landing on the stone staircase.

Raising her wand high over her head she could see she was in a large circular room with three doors leading in different directions. They had large brass signs above them that seemed to indicate what was behind them, but they were written in a language she didn't understand. One sign read, "Mulheres", whatever that meant. Another had "Lagarto do Trovão" printed on it and the third read "Câmara Da Morte".

"What do they mean?" one of the Hufflepuff girls asked.

"I think that one says 'women'," another of the Hufflepuff girls said pointing to the "Mulheres" door, "I think it's supposed Spanish, but it's spelled wrong. It should have a 'j' in it instead of the 'lh". The first word in the other door definitely means 'lizard' but the rest doesn't make sense."

"So it might not actually say 'women' then?" Janie asked, "Where are those boys?"

"Boo!" Wyatt said, pouncing on one of the Hufflepuff girls.

"How mature," Janie said dryly, "Alright boys where do we go now?"

"Through the 'mull here's' one," Wyatt said as he opened the Mulheres door. Inside was a slightly smaller room with two doors with identical labeling as those in the first room. The other side of the door they just came through was labeled "Homens". Wyatt scratched his head for a moment before heading through the door labeled "Câmara Da Morte". Inside was a foot thick stone slab raised about four feet off the ground by magic of some sort. A hole in one of the walls led out into the crypt proper. New looking red bricks coated in a grey sort of plaster littered the floor on both sides of the hole.

"Here we are," Wyatt said, pointing to the hole, "My uncle told me about this passage, they sealed it up when he was in school here. The dark lord's rumblings last year apparently broke apart the plaster."

Wyatt carefully crawled through the hole and into the crypt itself. Janie followed quickly after him as did the rest of the children behind them. This part of the crypt looked like it hadn't been touched in decades. Everything in sight was covered with a thick layer of spider webs and dust. The dust on the floor stirred around the students as they moved through the various corridors. They only occasionally stopped to point at a name on a niche in the wall they recognized. Finally they came to an intersection in the hallways that looked newer and more recently used.

Wyatt stopped and rubbed his chin for a moment and looked to his left and right and hummed thoughtfully. Janie stood beside him with her arms crossed, her wand still clenched firmly in her right hand.

"Lost?" she asked, ticking her glowing wand up and down in time with her tapping right foot.

"No just thinking a moment, right this way," Wyatt said leading them to the left. He slowly approached another intersection in the tunnels and grinned. "This is it," he said excitedly as he rounded the corner. On the ground was a headless and slightly desiccated corpse.

"This is it, the monster that Professor Green killed," Wyatt said excitedly, "Exploded its head from the looks of it. I'd give anything for that kind of power."

"I'd give anything not to even think about what that means," Janie said as she examined the corpse, "This guy has been dead quite some time," she said, tracing her fingers around what was left of the skull. "No brain tissue," she said.

"Ewww, you're touching it," squealed one of the other girls.

"This isn't any worse then the stuff Professor Sprout and Hagrid have us do," Janie said, "I think it's interesting." Janie looked at the corpse a few moments longer before looking up at Wyatt. "I think we better go, someone will be looking for us and we don't want to get in any trouble

"Aww is the little Hufflepussy afraid of getting detention?" Wyatt sneered.

"You know infantile remarks like that are not the way to a girl's heart right?' Janie replied, "Who came up with that "Hufflepussy" thing anyway. It sounds like something my seven year old little brother would say. He's a squib and really slow in the head just so you know."

Janie expected Wyatt or one of the other Slytherins to come back with some stupid retort that she had already planned how to respond to. Instead there was only silence. She looked up from the corpse she was examining and looked around. "Wyatt? Miranda? Where'd you go," She called, "This isn't funny, I don't know the way back."

"Your friends can't hear you little one," a silky voice said from the shadows. Janie shuddered involuntarily and her right hand instinctively whipped her wand up as she'd been taught to do in dueling class. Her left hand deftly pulled open a loose knot that held her dark arts defense kit closed.

"Who are you, where are they?" Janie asked moving her wand back and forth slowly. Her other hand slipped into the pouch at her hip and pulled out a vial of flash serum she'd made in Potions.

"You're a smart one, and powerful too I sense. Or you will be some day. Do you know what I am? Do you think a vial of bright liquid will repel me?" The voice hissed, moving closer.

"This isn't funny. I don't know who you are or why Wyatt put you up to this but I demand you stop it now," Janie said, stomping her left foot on the ground.

"Stop it now? Very well," the voice said. Suddenly the shadows began moving and a tall and very pale man coalesced out of the darkness. Janie barely had enough time to notice the strange clothing he wore before she smashed the vial in her hand on the ground. There should have been a bright, but harmless light and a noise similar to that of a flock of guinea fowl during mating season. Instead there was only shrieking from the man and the intense aroma of garlic. "_Garlic oil?_" Janie thought as she noticed the smell. I had splashed all over her robe. Not wanting to question why the strange man was shrieking like he was she ran down the catacombs in a random and quick fashion looking for the stairs out.

As luck would have it the stairs that spiraled up into the castle proper were just a few corridors away. She bolted up the stairs, stumbled into the hall and ran wildly until she found the first professor she could. As fast as she was running she nearly knocked Professor Snape over. Snape groaned in disgust at the smell of Janie and the garlic oil which she had rubbed on his robe.

"Man," Janie wheezed, "Crypt, Wyatt, Gone."

"Calm down," Snape said, "What happened."

Janie made frantic waving motions with her arms, almost poking Snape a few times in the process. Finally she caught her breath and managed to say, "We were in the crypt. Wyatt, some other Slythern boys and some Hufflepuff friends of mine. We found the zombies, and someone took the rest of them."

Professor Snape groaned and shook his head, "I'm sure it was a joke. Your friends will show up soon enough," he said in a vain attempt at consoling Janie.

"No," Janie said frantically, "It's not a joke," she said slinging garlic oil around.

"What's wrong?" Elanus asked, walking up behind Snape.

"This girl insists something happened in the crypts," Snape replied stiffly, "Nothing more then a Halloween prank I'm sure. When they turn up, and they always do they will be punished."

"Of that a have no doubt," Elanus said, smirking a bit, "Why don't we have a little fun and track them down and scare them ourselves though?"

Snape raised a curious eyebrow and smirked slightly, "You think this might not be a joke. I think you're mistaken. Go ahead and have your fun but I'll have no part of it."

Elanus snorted and did an about-face then walked of toward where he had seen Samuel last. Samuel and Snape seemed to have a similar opinion on the matter but Samuel decided it was worth at least checking out. After all the crypts were currently restricted to professors and students sneaking down there was grounds for detention. He'd also become increasingly agitated in the last few weeks. Samuel brushed his nervousness off as excitement. Something told him that there was more going on then what it seemed, no matter how certain he was that the Slythern boys had played a joke on Janie.

Not wishing to make the same mistake twice, Samuel quickly retrieved his armor and put it on. This had to be done in a hurry and with a lot of help from Elanus as they made their way to the crypt's main entrance. Samuel was careful to keep his hand on the pommel of his sword as he followed Elanus down the dusty tunnels underneath the castle. Elanus stopped at the corridor where they had defeated the creatures two months prior.

"This is not good," Elanus said calmly.

"What's wrong?" Samuel asked.

"The bodies of those things aren't here anymore," Elanus replied.

"So what?" Samuel asked, "Dumbledore must have had them removed."

"No he didn't," Elanus said, "I told him an expert should come look at them. Unfortunately the man I had in mind is in France. He insisted that we leave everything exactly as it was until he arrived. Flitwick and I came down here and placed charms on the area so nothing could disturb it much."

"And now the corpses are gone," Samuel said, "Are you sure we're in the right place?"

"Yes," Elanus replied.

"Did the charms keep the bodies from being moved?" Samuel asked.

"They could be moved a little, just not away from where they were. Mostly it was to prevent rot, fire, water damage and similar damage. The charms aren't active now though and it would have taken a pretty powerful wizard to dispel them," Elanus said, "Or an Opposite."

"I don't think I could dissipate charms like that," Samuel said.

"Uncle Gene could, certainly, but I told him about it and he promised he wouldn't come down here," Elanus said.

"I don't think James has been down here, and he's the only other person in the school that I know of that might be an Opposite," Samuel replied.

"I think I've pretty well ruled out Opposites in the school already," Elanus said, "It had to have been a wizard. The real problem here is, we have no idea where the bodies are, where the students are, or why there aren't any tracks."

"Cleaning spell explains the tracks," Samuel said, pointing at the dust on the floor, "I see our foot prints but I don't see any others, not even the girl's where she ran out. The dust on the floor is pretty even which could be a sign of a dusting spell."

"Yeah," Elanus said, "My mom used to use it before enchanted dusters. It just kicked the dust in the air, you had to have a wind charm to blow it out of the house. If you didn't the dust would settle right back down on whatever you tried to get it off of."

"Exactly, they covered their tracks," Samuel said.

"Not very well done either," Elanus commented, "There are only two exits out of here that don't lead to the castle."

"Where?" Samuel asked.

"One leads out into the forest, and the other is under about ten feet of mud at the moment," Elanus replied, "A landslide during my years here sealed it off."

"A landslide you say?" Samuel chuckled, "Well I suppose we check out the other exit. What does school policy say about missing children?"

"I'm not really sure," Elanus said, "But if we don't get those students back really quickly they'll probably shut the school down."

"It's going to be a long night then," Samuel said, "Shall we?"

Elanus nodded and walked down the tunnels, looking carefully down each intersection until he came to what looked like a stone ventilation shaft of some sort with a recently broken wooden ladder leading up almost fifty feet to a heavy iron grate. Samuel and Elanus looked up the shaft with more then just a bit of irritation.

"Let me guess, you didn't bring your bag of tricks either eh?" Samuel asked.

"Nope, I figured this was just a prank," Elanus replied.

"How did they lift that grate up and break the ladder at the same time?" Samuel asked, squinting at the barely illuminated grate, "And carry several children up. Are you sure this is the only way out?"

"Quite sure," Elanus replied, "I guess they flew."

"I think we could probably lift that grate off with not problem if we had something to stand on," Samuel said.

Elanus took off his robe, spread it out on the floor and waved his wand at it. The robe stiffened and rose a few inches off the ground. He stood on top of it and instructed Samuel to do the same. Quickly the robe rose off the ground higher and higher until they nearly had to duck to keep from hitting their heads on the grate. The two men wrapped their hands around the iron bars of the grate and lifted with all their might. Slowly they lifted the grate from its resting place and climbed out of the hole. Elanus snatched his robe from the air and wrapped it around himself again.

They stood just inside the dark forest outside the school grounds. The October night air made their lungs feel cold and the wind nipped at their exposed skin. Elanus lit the tip of his wand and carefully examined the ground around the grate. "This way," he said, pointing deeper into the forest. Samuel followed closely behind his cousin, right hand wrapped tightly around the pommel of his sword.

"Any idea what we're looking for?" Samuel asked.

"Vampires," Elanus replied grimly.

"Are you sure? Tell me you're joking."

"I never joke about vampires, believe me, I wish I was. See that grey residue on the ground there?" Elanus asked, pointing to a lump of grayish white sludge on the ground.

Samuel knelt down to examine the sludge, "Smells like burning garlic and skin."

"That's what it is. That girl must have somehow doused a vampire in garlic essence from her kit. It causes a violent allergic reaction when they come in contact with it. That slime is a sort of vampiric pus that drops off the vampire to rid it of the garlic. The damage to the vampire isn't permanent, and when the sun rises it will burn up so very few people have seen this stuff," Elanus commented.

Samuel snorted in disgust and stood back up, "Lead on then," he said. Elanus nodded and made his way down a narrow but fresh trail made by half a dozen pairs of little feet as they were being led through the forest. The two made very little noise as they moved, a skill that they had both honed in Texas while hunting rabbits with little more then sticks and occasionally a sling shot. After about a half hour of tracking Elanus snuffed his wand and held his hand back and motioned Samuel to stop.

They crouched down and peered past a few trees into what looked like a small clearing. Four adult sized figures were circling around what appeared to be six frightened children. The larger figures seemed impatient and waiting for something. "Where is he?" one of the figures muttered. "He'll be here," another one said a bit more calmly.

"Shall we strike?" Samuel asked Elanus in a whisper.

"There's another one I think," Elanus whispered, "We want them all at once."

Samuel nodded and gripped his sword tightly as he watched the figures circle around the children. He felt cold all of a sudden, as if he were crouching in a pool of water and it had just soaked through his clothing. Elanus shivered audibly and turned around quickly, whipping his wand around. He winced once and fell silent falling on the ground with a thud. Samuel instinctively closed his eyes a second then in one fluid motion he drew his sword with one hand and turned around, thrusting it deeply into whatever had silenced his cousin. The sickening sound of flesh and muscle tearing accompanied Samuel's sword thrust.

A tall man stood in front of Samuel, pale and gaunt. Samuel's sword stuck out of his chest and a smile was on his face. The man wrapped his left hand around Samuel's sword and began pulling it out of his chest. Samuel reacted quickly and jerked the sword up and with his other hand punched the man in the face, staggering him back a few paces.

"Excellent form, and a fine blade, but I fear the pathetic secrets of Asia will not save you here," the man taunted. Samuel raised an eyebrow although it was more in confusion then intrigue. "I see you find it intriguing that I know where you learned the art. I know many things," the man said.

"I must say I am amazed at your perception, vampire," Samuel said, carefully hiding the sarcasm in his voice.

"Who was your master?" the vampire asked, moving around slowly, obviously trying to gain some advantage.

"Kasahara-Chan," Samuel replied, keeping his face straight, "One of the best sensei in all China. He taught me the ways of China's best and oldest samurai warriors."

The vampire narrowed his eyes and advanced towards Samuel, "Then I will send him your head so that he will know he failed in teaching you the sword." Samuel choked, trying not to laugh and moved in a more defensive posture. The vampire lunged at Samuel; grinning a wicked smile as he did. Samuel narrowly avoided the vampire's claws and returned with a slash from his sword.

Samuel intuitively studied his opponent as they exchanged blows. He found it hard to keep the vampire away from him as its wounds didn't seem to slow it down or even bother it. Many of the wounds Samuel had inflicted on the vampire were now closed completely and most were healing rapidly. The vampire didn't seem to have any particular form to his attacks. Samuel figured the vampire had no real training and was relying on its greater strength and speed to overcome him. What the vampire lacked in training, it certainly made up for in experience. It was obvious the vampire was no stranger to a fight. In life he had probably been quite an impressive tavern brawler. Maria would have cut it to ribbons and James would have found this whole situation laughable.

There were other concerns besides the berserk vampire attacking him. What of the other vampires? Why was Elanus unconscious? Why weren't the vampire's companions attacking him too? Samuel began to think back to his training. He knew he had to kill the vampire as even if he hacked all its limbs off it would still heal eventually. Even though he was familiar with vampire vulnerabilities there was not much he could do. He didn't have a wooden stake, silver or garlic. He wasn't sure that would work either as he was certain he'd got the vampire through the heart with his sword. That should have killed it unless he removed his sword. He supposed he could have missed, and the wound was already healed so he couldn't tell. Samuel was also finding it difficult to get in a position to grip his sword with both hands.

An idea then presented itself. He just had to remove the vampire's head. His sword wasn't really heavy enough to do that one handed and Samuel wasn't really certain he even had the strength in one arm anyway. Samuel's training didn't exactly cover the removal of heads during combat either. Mr. Esteban had taught him a few tricks though, one of which just might work. Samuel felt down the edge of his cloak with his left hand and slipped a finger into a small loop inside the hem. He had asked Mrs. Weasley to put it there for just such a purpose. He backed up and began talking to the vampire again.

"I must confess I lied to you earlier," Samuel said.

"What do I care?" The vampire asked.

"Well your ignorance is quite astounding. I thought it would be best if I educate you before you kill me so you don't make this mistake again," Samuel said.

"So you admit defeat," the vampire reasoned, "What mistake?"

"Well for one," Samuel said, backing up as he did, "It should be obvious to anyone that samurai are from Japan, not China." The vampire snorted in response and lurched at Samuel, who stepped quickly out of the way, keeping the vampire at arm length. "The other thing that should be fairly obvious to anyone who knows anything about Asian cultures is that the suffix 'Chan' is also Japanese. If I remember right it is used to refer to a girl not a man. I'm sure there's more to it then that though."

"What does that matter?" the vampire asked.

"It would if you're ever in Japan, I thought you should know," Samuel said. "Sensei is a Japanese word as well, I believe, and I have never in my life met anyone by the name of Kasahara. I think he wrote an origami book. Those aren't even the most glaring examples of your ignorance though. Should I tell you what is?"

"Why not, you're about to die anyway," the vampire replied.

"I don't know a damn thing about Asian swordplay. My teacher was from Spain, any idiot could see this is a European style sword," Samuel said. The vampire angrily slashed his claws at Samuel again. Samuel swung his left hand up and wrapped his cloak around the vampire's hands and gave a sharp pull which sent the vampire staggering to the ground. Samuel quickly grabbed his sword with his other hand and said, "I guess you weren't going to kill me after all," to the vampire before cleanly removing its head as it tried to get to its knees to stand up. Samuel knelt down and wiped the ichor off his blade on the vampire's clothing and turned to find his cousin.

Elanus began to regain consciousness as soon as the vampire was slain. He stood up, still somewhat dazed and almost instantly darted for the children. Samuel ran after him only to find that the other vampires and the children were already gone. No tracks marked their passing nor did any other visible trace.

"Damn!" Elanus shouted, clenching his fists in rage. Samuel placed his hand on his cousin's shoulder, "We'll get them back."

"Lumos!" Elanus said angrily. The tip of his wand lit up a bright golden color and then abruptly went out.

"That can't be good," Samuel remarked, pulling a leather pouch out of his cloak. He took out what appeared to be a small plastic cylinder and bent it in half and shook it. The tube began glowing a bright green and he held it out in front of him, "There's a mostly dead vampire back there, I think he'll be coming back unless we stake him. The forest never gets very bright."

Elanus muttered something under his breath and pulled a small pocket knife from his pocket and began cutting a small branch off from a nearby tree. He sharpened the stick and furiously rammed it into the vampire's heart. Not willing to take any chances he stomped it in with his foot and broke off the piece sticking out of the corpse. Samuel shook his head, "This is going to be a hard one to explain to Dumbledore."

"Don't talk to me," Elanus snapped as he drug the vampire's corpse out into the clearing. Samuel brought the head out into the clearing as well and hung it on a sapling that grew out of the middle of the clearing. Elanus managed to gather enough fallen wood from the forest to elevate the body off the ground.

Elanus snatched the light stick from Samuel's hands and led the way back to Hogwarts in silence. Dumbledore and a few of the professors were waiting on them as they arrived. Storming past the professors, Elanus almost knocked professor Snape over. Snape called out and drew his wand. Samuel grabbed Snape's hand before he could do anything and shook his head at the professor, "Bad idea, let it go." Severus relaxed his arm somewhat and Samuel let him go.

"What happened?" Dumbledore asked.

"Vampires, they kidnapped several of the students," Samuel replied, "I killed one of them. It made Elanus go unconscious or something. He's pretty mad about it. The other vampires got away, with the children." Several of the professors gasped and began talking amongst themselves.

"That is an interesting device, Professor Green," Snape said referring to the glowstick Elanus dropped, "What is it? And how is it that a muggle device works in Hogwarts?"

"It's a chemical light stick. Sort of an emergency light. I found they were the only thing that worked during my training. It seems the wards around Hogwarts don't affect chemical reactions," Samuel said.

"Why did you need it?" Dumbledore asked, "Was Elanus' wand damaged?"

"No, he lit it up but it flickered gold and suddenly went out. He couldn't light it again," Samuel replied, "We couldn't see our way back."

"This is bad," Flitwick said.

"I fear we'll find that is a sad understatement," Dumbledore said.


	16. The Evacuation

Chapter 16: The Evacuation

**_Author's Note:_**_ I have realized that the last several chapters in this story consist of a lot of rambling. The problem is that I've changed my idea about the plot about seven times since I started this sucker nearing two years ago. I can't hardly even guarantee I'll finish it anymore but I'll try._

Elanus paced angrily in the headmaster's office while Dumbledore conferred with the school governors who had arrived the morning after the kidnapping. The governors were upset over the recent kidnappings and demanded to know why the children hadn't been recovered. This made Elanus even more agitated and Samuel tried to explain what had happened.

"There is a wizard slayer here, and the head of the Department of Mysteries as well," one of the governors said, "Explain to me why you couldn't do a simple thing like recover a few abducted children? They were taken by vampires for crying out loud. What do we pay you for?"

"I told you, my cousin was unconscious and I was being threatened by a hostile vampire. What do you expect? I couldn't very well let him turn Elanus here, imagine what would have happened if I had?" Samuel asked, "Besides all that they didn't seem to want to hurt the children anyway. If I had ran in and tried to save the children immediately it's likely they would have caused them harm and Elanus would likely be a vampire himself this morning, or dead if he was lucky. As for what you pay me for, you pay me to kill rogue wizards should the need arise not vampires."

"If they didn't intend to harm the children why did they take them from the school?" the governor asked.

"I don't think kidnapping is always intended to be harmful, at least not to the victim," Samuel replied, "That's not really relevant though, what is relevant is what are you people going to do? And what is the plan to find the children and get them back?"

"We'll have to shut the school down until this matter is resolved, I'm afraid," the governor replied.

"I don't know if that's at all necessary," Elanus said, "This was all planned. They knew we'd dispatch those things earlier this year, and they knew once we did the more curious students would go right down into the crypts to investigate. Then they'd make their move."

"Why not snatch them from the halls?" another of the governors asked.

"I think I have the answer to that," Dumbledore replied, "Mr. Filch would have had to invite them in to any other level except the crypts. He lives in the castle all year long, it's his home."

"And vampires are not barred from graveyards or places of the dead," Samuel continued, "contrary to popular belief."

The governors conferred with each other for several minutes before shaking their heads. "I'm sorry, we can't risk anymore children being kidnapped and unless I'm greatly mistaken there will be parents here by the droves to take their children home this evening. If you would be so kind, headmaster, to make the announcement the children need to be evacuated by nightfall if possible. We're all in agreement that it is the best thing to do at this time. I hope it will all be resolved quickly so that the children might return."

Dumbledore nodded silently, with only a bare hint of disapproval on his face, "I will do so at once," he said, rising from his seat. He walked the governors to his study door and shut it behind them. Dumbledore shook his head gravely and sat down behind his desk, rubbing his temples.

"I don't see why they came to that conclusion," Samuel remarked.

"Politics my dear boy, politics," Dumbledore replied, "There are many who think wizards are superior to everyone. They think that we are the stewards of the 'lesser' creatures and we know what is best. Vampires and muggles are included in this long list of 'lesser' beings. If word got out that the professors at Hogwarts were bested by a bunch of vampires, well it would not be pleasant for any of us."

"Hogwarts professors weren't bested though, it was Elanus and I," Samuel said, "We were just doing our jobs."

"I know, I know, there's more to it then that," Dumbledore said.

"He means they don't trust us, Samuel, we're both inferior because of who our parents are and were. They never have and probably never will. I would suspect there will be a large scale cover up and we'll be tracking down vampires for the next few weeks if not months. It'll be a regular witch hunt if you take my meaning," Elanus said.

"I suspect you are right about the vampire hunting," Dumbledore said, "I think that there are a great many people who do trust you, and see you two for the heroes that you really are. They'll come to your aid when you need them. Just be careful whose aid you accept."

Samuel chuckled in amusement, "Well I suppose we better get packing." With that the two left the headmaster's office. As they were walking down the hallways Dumbledore's voice echoed through the corridors.

"_Attention students. Classes have been suspended indefinitely please remain in your dormitories and gather your belongings as quickly as possible. Owls have been sent to your parents, most of who will be arriving this afternoon at King's Cross to retrieve you. Lodging will be provided to those students who are unable to return home. That is all."_

"Not very subtle today is he?" Samuel asked, "Who do you have in mind to join us on this merry escapade?"

"No one, just me an you," Elanus replied in a grim tone, "I don't trust anyone at this point."

"Care to explain? We can't just go tracking these guys down by ourselves."

"We can't risk anyone else. I hate to even take you along," Elanus replied, "Despite my better judgment, and not wanting to put my family in danger I have to. I'm going to need your skills on this one."

"I take it you don't plan on being very nice."

"No Samuel, I don't," Elanus replied.

The Gryffindor common room was bustling with activity. Students were frantic trying to recover all their belongings that they had let others borrow. Most were trying to find out any scrap of information they could about why the school was suddenly shutting down. Dumbledore hadn't specifically said it was being closed down but many had already figured that out.

Harry, however sat in his room looking rather despondent. Every one of his room mates had either already left or were in the common room or Great Hall waiting further instruction. Ron and Hermione sat on his bed with him trying to cheer him up.

"I'm sure Mum and Dad wouldn't mind you living with us until this all clears up," Ron said.

"If not I know my parents have room for you," Hermione said, "You can visit at very least. If it's your schooling you worry about I can tutor you until the school opens again."

"I'm not worried about anything you can teach me, Hermione," Harry said, "I was supposed to begin my Auror training this year. We all know that won't happen now."

"Janie said that there are some students missing," Hermione said, "I'm sure when they find them we'll be allowed to return to school. You'll see, it won't be long."

"I overheard Professor Green talking about vampires last night," Harry said, "I think they're going to hunt them down."

"Great," Hermione said sarcastically.

"Why do you hate them so much?" Ron asked, "They saved our lives last year, and they're both very good at what they do."

"Professor Green is not much better then a hired assassin. Do you realize he's a wizard slayer? Ron, he makes his living killing wizards. How great a person can he be? And Elanus Green is a well known eccentric. He's always tampering with muggle artifacts. Do you realize your father's position on that?"

Ron glared at her and turned his attention back to Harry, "You better decide what you're going to do and quick. They'll be putting you in an inn for the next few months if you don't, either that or the Dursley's and they'll make you go to a muggle school."

Harry cringed at the thought, "You said Elanus and Samuel were going to be hunting the vampires down? Maybe I'll ask Uncle Gene if I can go back to Texas with him. I ought to be safe there and they still count as family."

"I think that only applied to Voldemort," Ron said.

"I meant safe from Dudley," Harry chuckled, "What are your plans Hermione?"

"Well, I got the lesson plans from all my teachers, except Professor Snape, at the beginning of the year," Hermione replied, "I'm going to continue studying the lessons as if I were here at Hogwarts."

"Which means you should blow through them in about three weeks, what do you plan on doing if the school is shut down for longer?" Ron asked, "Plus how will you practice? You can't perform magic outside of school until after next year."

Hermione shrugged and looked away, "I just don't want to be unprepared when they reopen the school."

Samuel and Maria were busy packing their belongings in their quarters. Maria stomped back and forth across the room grumbling in Spanish.

"What do you mean I can't go with you?" Maria asked, "Are you saying I'm not capable of defending myself?"

"No," Samuel said, stuffing various articles of clothing into a suitcase, "This is going to be an extremely dangerous trip Elanus and I are taking. Believe me I don't like not being able to take you along any more then you like it. Elanus is insistent that only the two of us go, and he's not happy he has to bring me along either. Besides all that, I can't stand the thought of you getting hurt, or worse."

"I am not going to die," Maria said, folding her arms across her chest, "Even if I did, I'm prepared, you know that."

"Maria, death is not the worst thing that could happen, believe me," Samuel said as he snapped the suitcase shut.

"Then why do you have to go?" Maria asked, "This shouldn't be required of you. They can't make you."

"It is my sworn duty to help protect these people and those students who were kidnapped are just children," Samuel replied, "Even though I'm amused to no end that a group of vampires had the guts to break into Hogwarts, I can't let them harm those children. If they have, it is my job to take care of the problem."

"Just be careful. I don't want to spend our one year anniversary at your funeral," Maria said.

Samuel smiled and kissed his wife, "I intend to come back very much alive."

"Are you taking all this stuff with you?" Maria asked.

"No this goes home with Dad. I have a few changes of clothing in my book bag," Samuel replied.

"What about your armor and sword?"

"It's all in there," Samuel replied, "Fred and George do excellent work."

"Do you think I could get a purse like that?" Maria asked.

"Probably, just get someone to take you to Diagon Ally or write the twins and see. Tell them I'll pay them when I get back," Samuel replied as he summoned their house elf. Samuel instructed the elf to deliver their things to Gene's quarters where it would later be transported to Texas.

Elsewhere in the castle chaos ruled the halls. Children were leaving the castle as quickly as possible. They either met their parents outside or boarded carriages bound for Hogsmeade.

Harry waited patiently outside Gene's quarters when a small group of house elves arrived at the door with Samuel and Maria's belongings floating behind them. The house elf looked up at Harry curiously and knocked on the door. Gene answered the door and looked down at the house elves and rolled his eyes. "Samuel was too lazy to bring them himself was he?" Gene asked.

"It is our job, and these are heavy," the elf replied. Gene chuckled and picked up all four suitcases at once and easily set them inside his room much to the house elves' surprise.

"Oh, Harry, I didn't see you there, what can I do for you?" Gene asked.

"I was um," Harry stammered, "wondering if."

"Wondering if you could go home with me?" Gene finished for him.

"Yes."

"I don't see why not, you know we'll have to get permission from your uncle and aunt," Gene said, "Why don't you come in. Dumbledore will be here any minute anyway."

Harry nodded and stepped inside. Gene's quarters had pretty well been stripped bare and several wooden crates sat in the middle of the room. Gene sat down on one of them and looked around the room thoughtfully.

"I'll sure miss this place but it will be good to be home," he commented.


	17. The Ending of the Wizard Era

**Chapter 17: The Ending of The Wizard Era**

**Author's Notes: **_I have realized that this story has gone way too long without going much of anywhere and after almost two years of writing it I have been finding it increasingly more difficult to keep adding to this particular story. For those of you who actually have read it I am NOT abandoning this story, I am simply splitting it in two. The title makes not a whole lot of sense in context with the story and this sucker would continue well past the thirtieth chapter, which is further then I want to go with any single fan fiction. With that in mind I will be ending this story with Elanus and Samuel's departure from Hogwarts, and I will start a new one beginning with their hunt for the children. It will likely not include many 'canon' characters if any, although I may offer glimpses into what the wizard world is doing at the time. So I guess you could say it will be original fiction set in the "Harry Potter Universe" and really it'll be set in my take of that universe. Hopefully it'll be posted soon, I have my calendar set for about May 1st, but I hope to get a few chapters done well before that._

The chaos of the evacuation subsided after a few hours and soon the only students that were left were a few muggle borns being herded towards Hogsmeade.

Samuel and Elanus sat on a large crate outside the castle grounds. Samuel's fingers drifted over his guitar, the notes were faint as the guitar was not plugged in to anything. Gene, Maria, James, and Harry walked up and quietly waited for Samuel to finish playing. Maria smiled at her husband as he sadly put his guitar inside its case.

Maria took Samuel off from the crates a few yards and Gene turned to Elanus.

"I know, I hate to take him away from her too," Elanus said as if responding to his uncle's thoughts, "But I need him," he sighed, "Both of us may not come back."

"We have said our goodbyes, we are prepared if it should come to that," Gene said, "Do not hold back for our sake."

James nodded in agreement, "Come back with your shield, or on it. Either way we'll see each other again when we get home."

Elanus nodded, "And the two lovebirds?"

"The 'lovebirds' will be fine," Maria replied, "We will be together again, one way or another."

"You know as impossible as you say the odds are, I don't really plan on dying yet," Samuel said, "Mark my words, in a few months I'll be back here ready to teach more fledgling wizards about muggles."

Samuel could hardly know the hardship he and his cousin would be facing in the weeks to come. The only constant in his life would be sleeping during the day, and the struggle to keep himself and Elanus alive at night. They were the hunters, and the hunted and would become the hunters again in the days following.

Could this cabal of child stealing vampires be what Voldemort meant by, "Something out there worse then him"?


End file.
